
Class ___L____. 

Book . l. _ 

GoRyriglit^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE 

MODERN SHORT-STORY 

A STUDY OF THE FORM: 

ITS PLOT, STRUCTURE, DEVELOPMENT 

AND OTHER REQUIREMENTS 



BY 
LUCY LILIAN NOTESTEIN 

IN COLLABORATION WITH 

WALDO HILARY DUNN 

PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION 
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WOOSTER 




NEW YORK 

THE A. S. BARNES COMPANY 

1914 



.Us 



COPYRIGHT, I914 
THE A S. BARNES CO. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1914 



THE 'PLIMPTON "PRESS 
NORWOOD • MASS- U« S» A 



JAN 26 1914 

(C.< r.i a a fi 1 7 a r 









TO 

RUDYARD KIPLING 

MASTER OF THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

MASTER OF THE MAGIC OF WORDS 

THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHORS 



4> 



PREFACE 

The object of this book is to state as clearly as 
may be, just what the modern Short-story is, and to 
enumerate and expound the principles underlying 
the most typical examples of this distinctive kind 
of fiction. An experience of several years as a 
teacher of college classes in Short-story writing 
convinced me that in the case of my own students 
I could secure better results by the use of a text- 
book different in type from any of those available. 
Some of the existing works on the subject treat in 
elaborate detail the development of the Short-story 
from the time of the narratives of the Egyptian 
papyri; others confuse the student by discussing 
at too great length many related forms of merely 
short fiction. In regard to other more or less ad- 
mirable texts, I have only to say that my method 
differs from that laid down in any of them. In 
teaching the writing of the Short-story, I have 
thought it best to hold to the strictly modern form, 
and to leave the history of its evolution as matter 
for a separate and distinct course of study. I 
soon became convinced that I should have to make 



vi PREFACE 

a restatement of what is known about the Short- 
story in the order which experience taught me was 
most serviceable from the teacher's point of view. 

When this conviction came to me, I found myself 
too closely occupied with other imperative duties 
to undertake such a work. It was my good fortune 
to be able to turn, at this time, to one of my former 
students, Miss Lucy Lilian Notestein, a graduate 
of the University of Wooster. She brought to the 
work a broad and thorough knowledge of the sub- 
ject, an enthusiastic devotion, and a carefulness of 
detail which I myself could scarcely have sum- 
moned. Thus it is that, although the idea of this 
book originated with me, the actual work has all 
been done by Miss Notestein. Together we have 
agreed upon the plan and the contents of the volume, 
and together we have read it in proof. 

It will be noticed that, in the main, the text is 
based upon a few modern Short-stories which have 
earned for themselves an established place in litera- 
ture. We have felt that it is a distinct gain to 
illustrate all points by reference to these few ex- 
amples. Teachers may require students to become 
thoroughly familiar with the stories herein referred 
to, and students will find a distinct gain in power 
in actually mastering these specimens. Moreover, 
the principles underlying these Short-stories will be 
found to be the principles underlying all good Short- 
stories. Although in the preparation of this book 



PREFACE vii 

many hundreds of stories have been read, we have 
refrained from burdening the text with titles. The 
restriction of examples is a part of our method. 

Those who desire histories of the Short-story may 
select from a number on the market. Bibliographies 
of the subject are now easily accessible. We have 
therefore burdened this volume with neither his- 
tory nor bibliography. We have made an effort 
to hold to the original purpose: to set forth a study 
of the Short-story in its typical modern form. We 
have consulted at first hand all the published litera- 
ture bearing upon this fictional form, and have used 
it as best suited our purpose. We have tried to 
indicate in all cases direct indebtedness to previous 
writers on the same subject. 

It is our hope that this book may prove of much 
value to the rapidly increasing number of private 
readers and students who are finding in the Short- 
story that high degree of satisfaction which comes 
from a study of finished art. Although prepared 
primarily for use as a college text-book, the volume 
is not, in our opinion, for that reason less adapted 
to the use of the general reader, but more so. 
Every attempt has been made to avoid vagueness 
and obscurity of statement: no attempt has been 
made to employ technical or unusual terms for the 
sake of the terms themselves. We have tried to be 
honestly, transparently straightforward and unos- 
tentatious. 



Vlll 



PREFACE 



There remains only the pleasure of acknowledging 
the unusual debt of gratitude we owe to Jonas 0. 
Notestein, Aylsworth Professor of the Latin Lan- 
guage and Literature; to Mr. Walter E. Peck, of the 
department of Rhetoric and English Composition, 
in the University of Wooster; and to Mrs. Fern 
Greenwald Dunn. For helpful suggestion, sympa- 
thetic criticism, and aid in seeing this volume 
through the press, we can render to them no 

adequate return. 

WALDO H. DUNN 

University of Wooster, 
October 4, 1913 



CONTENTS 



I.-THE MODERN SHORT-STORY Page 

A distinct form of art. It does not necessarily treat of 
a turning-point in the life of an individual. Its material, 
incidents, and situations. Has a climax; hence plot 
with interweaving character and action. Should give a 
single impression. Differs thus from the novel. Rela- 
tion of single impression to climax. Impression emo- 
tional rather than intellectual. Length of story varies, 
as also, number of characters, the time, and the place 
necessary to action. Definition of the Short-story. 
Comparison with principles laid down by Poe. Types 
of stories: Character; Action; Setting. Kinds classi- 
fied: Mystery story; Problem story; Story based on 
social and economic questions; Story of special class or 
locality; Of special mood or emotion; Adventure story; 
Story of symbolism. Possible value of Short-story . . 3 

II — THE GERMINAL IDEA 

Germinal idea distinguished from title, subject, theme, 
motive, purpose. Defined. May be: Incident; Situa- 
tion; Impression of character, of setting; Mood; Title; 
Abstract truth. Its sources are experience and reading. 
Idea should be tested for its story possibilities. Result- 
ing story should not be trivial, not trite, not polemic. 
Novelty valuable. Purpose of story to be considered, 
also single impression 29 



x CONTENTS 

III — PLOT Page 

Nature of plot. Requires selection and rearrangement 
of details for cause and effect. Weakness of the true- 
story. Simplicity of plot necessary and advantageous. 
Essentials: Character and action interwoven at climax. 
Elements of plot construction: Climax — its possible 
nature; Complication involving an unavoidable ob- 
stacle; Circumstances leading to the complication; 
Characters — main and accessory; Environment. 
Illustrative plots with explanation 51 

IV — STRUCTURE 

Distinction between plot and structure. Rule of economy 
and emphasis a guiding principle. Developing charac- 
ters, — for contrast, — for background, — for natural- 
ness, — for the carrying out of details. Incidents may 
serve in three ways: To advance movement; To illus- 
trate; To give emotional stimulus. Proportion be- 
tween character, action, and setting must be observed. 
Use of refrain and thematic variations for emphasis. 
Order of events within a story. Should it be chrono- 
logical? Divisions within the narrative. The "angles 
of narration": Objective; Participant; Letter or diary; 
Witness or auditor; Story within a story. Necessity 
of verisimilitude. Means of attaining it: Truth of idea; 
Contact with the actual; Vividness; Details 76 

V — THE END AND THE BEGINNING 

Importance of end. May dissipate or strengthen single 
impression. Ends may be various: The climax; A 
tapering off from climax; A final deepening of impres- 
sion; or a Comment. Harmony between beginning and 
end valuable for unity. What the beginning is. Its 
function: To set the emotional tone; To introduce main 
characters. Its forms: Action; Character; Setting; 
Generalization. The first sentence. Illustrative story 
beginnings 103 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

i 

THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

The Short-story 1 years ago felt its way into 
modern art. To-day it is an insistent presence. 
It has passed safe through the period of experimen- 
tation, and is the most popular, as well as the most 
modern, of literary forms. It is more than mere 
short narrative. It is an artistic fact, distinct, 
definite, governed by specific laws. Yet it is akin 
to the other forms of narrative art. The Short- 
story witch gathered material from varied sources: 
some qualities she took from the novel, some from 
the tale and the sketch, some from the drama. 
Allied to all of these forms, yet different from each, 
the Short-story combines in a new way narrative 
interest, brevity, unity of emotional impression, 
and climactic plot. 

"The Short-story is a small thing, cunningly 

1 We accept Brander Matthews' method of designating the 
form: "I have written 'Short-stories' with a capital S and a 
hyphen because I wished to emphasize the distinction between 
the Short-story and the story which is merely short. The 
Short-story is a high and difficult department of fiction. The 
story which is short can be written by anybody who can write 
at all; and it may be good, bad, or indifferent; but at its best 
it is wholly unlike the Short-story." Brander Matthews, The 
Philosophy of the Short-story, pp. 24-5. Longmans, Green 
& Co., New York, 1901. 



4 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

wrought. From the first line to the last it must be 
decorated, polished, highly concentrated, closely 
welded." 1 Because of these strict requirements, it 
has developed a regularity of structure almost 
unknown to other literary forms. Nowhere else 
must the literary artist be so conscious of his art. 
It has been said that ". . . there is no form of 
literary art, not even the sonnet, to which the 
mechanics of composition are more essentially 
important than to the successfully excellent Short- 
story. Here form is not paramount, but, without 
qualification or peradventure, it is here absolutely 
essential to the effect sought." 2 This studied regu- 
larity of structure is, however, not a hindrance to 
beauty or to power: it but lends the charm of 
perfection. One looks with admiration at an empty 
honeycomb. Yet it is the mechanical perfection 
of its construction that causes one's pleasure in 
seeing it. One wonders at the skill which has 
built the cells so faultlessly. Little pleasure would 
be experienced in examining a honeycomb of irreg- 
ular cells arranged in no definite order. Thus the 
Short-story form 3 has not lost but gained by reason 
of its restrictions. 

1 Harper's Weekly, May 23, 1908, p. 8. 

2 Rankin, Poet Lore, 17: 1; 105. 

3 "The Short-story in prose literature corresponds, then, to 
the lyric in poetry; like the lyric, its unity of effect turns largely 
upon its brevity; and as there are well-known laws of lyric 
structure which the lyric poet violates at his peril or obeys to 
his triumph, so the Short-story must observe certain conditions 
and may enjoy certain freedoms that are peculiar to itself." 
Bliss Perry, A Study of Prose Fiction, p. 306. 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 5 

The restrictions of the Short-story form neces- 
sarily affect the range of its possible subject-matter. 
No whole life can be treated adequately, no com- 
plex plot can be entertained, within the brief limits 
set for the Short-story. Unlike the novel, it shows 
not the whole man — except by passing hint — but 
a significant moment or experience, a significant 
character-trait. However vividly this chosen mo- 
ment may be interpreted, much will still be left to 
the imagination. It is the aim of the Short-story 
writer to trace the causal relations of but one cir- 
cumstance, so that this circumstance may be 
intensified. He isolates so that he may throw the 
flash-light more searchingly on some one event, on 
some one element of character, on some one emo- 
tion. He presents "in a vigorous, compressed, 
suggestive way, a simplification and idealization 
of a particular part or phase of life." * 

"... If all narration amounts, as critics say, 
merely to a simplification of experience, imagina- 
tive or real, then a Short-story is simplification to 
the highest degree. We are selecting far more than 
in a novel, and this because we are looking only for 
the chain of related incidents that go to make up 
one event. We are picking out the steps that make 
the tragedy, as in Maupassant's famous story, The 
Necklace, or in Kipling's Without Benefit of Clergy; 
we are looking only for what bears upon our narrow 
purpose, that the interest may be concentrated, 
and the conception vivified, beyond the power of 

1 Albright, The Short-story, p. 5. 



6 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

the novel. The process is very artificial, but very- 
powerful; it is like turning a telescope upon one 
nebula in the heavens." l "It [the Short-story] 
affords, too, ample opportunity for subtle and 
penetrating analysis; for close and merciless study 
of morbid temperaments or vitally sympathetic 
portraitures of great natures contending with tragic 
conditions; for the segregation of a bit of significant 
experience and a finished presentation of its aspects 
and effects; for the detachment of a single figure 
from the dramatic movement, and a striking sketch 
of its features and gestures; for the dissection of a 
motive so searching and skilful that its deepest 
roots are laid bare; for effectiveness in bringing a 
series of actions into clear light in a sudden and 
brief crisis, and telling a complete story by sugges- 
tion; for the delicate impressionism which, by 
vividness or charm of phrase and diffusion of atmos- 
phere, magically conveys the sense of landscape; 
for the wealth of humor concentrated on a person 
or an incident, and for the touch of tragedy resting 
like the finger of fate on an experience or a charac- 
ter." 2 The work of the Short-story is to make life 
vivid by signalizing moments. 

It has been a popular misconception that a Short- 
story writer should use as material only crucial 
incidents or situations. Since only one event or 
situation can be emphasized in a Short-story, it 
is natural to suppose that a writer ought to choose 

1 Jessup and Canby, The Book of the Short-story, p. 24. 
2 Mabie, Outlook, 89: 119. 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 7 

the one determining crisis which makes or mars, 
the supreme struggle of a soul, the one great change 
or turning-point in a life-history. Such moments 
do afford wonderful opportunities for striking analy- 
ses, for emotional stress, for the suggestion of a 
whole character sketched in the act of meeting 
its test; they have been the bases of many of the 
best Short-stories — stories of real literary value. 
One expects from the more significant subject the 
more telling interpretation. It is true that an 
inspiring subject goes a long way toward the mak- 
ing of a successful story. Yet a great subject may 
easily fail of becoming a great story. Literature 
does not content itself simply with rendering the 
significant more significant; it may find its glory 
quite as really in the commonplace. 

Although every life has its crucial turning-points, 
every life has, also, its minor crises, its incidents 
which are less than crises, — almost anecdotes. 
These, too, the Short-story writer may interpret. 
He may picture the little sorrows, the little joys, 
the little victories, the little defeats. He may show 
the inconsistencies and incongruities of life. "It 
is his delight to observe and note the fresh, the 
striking, the unusual or interesting phases of human 
life about him, to turn them over in his mind till 
they have taken definite new form, and send them 
forth again — his own creation." 1 A whole life 
may not be vitally affected by what happens in 
some unimportant moment, but in the light of this 
1 Albright, The Short-story, p. 14. 



8 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

moment a whole character may be explained. 
Upon brief and inconsequential moments x the 
greater number of our modern magazine Short- 
stories are based. Vivid and satisfying as her 
narratives are, Mary Wilkins Freeman used the 
commonplace incidents and situations of a work-a- 
day world for her New England stories. 0. Henry, 
with a purpose of showing the ordinary life of the 
average man or woman in New York, has often 
used incidents which to most of us would never 
have seemed worth the telling. Maupassant has 
written an interesting story based on the picking 
up of a piece of string. One thing is demanded, 
however, of the writer of such a story: he must 
develop through this incident some one aspect of 
human nature in its intensity by bringing out its 
high lights. By touching upon human nature, 
the story-writer establishes a link between the indi- 
vidual, — no matter how queer, unusual, or com- 
monplace he may be, — and mankind. We know 
him; for, broadly speaking, we are actuated by the 
same motives and passions. The story has a mean- 
ing. At least, we have gained a glimpse into the 
spirit of mankind. Thus, even the commonplace 
is rendered significant. 

Thus far, it has been intimated that Short-story 

1 "Art, likewise, perceives that its function to-day is not 
alone the great setting forth of the awakening of the human 
soul or of the human soul's great achievements and grand fail- 
ures, but also the adequate presentation of that soul's stuff and 
of its relations, item by item, and each item in isolation." 
Rankin, Poet Lore, 17: 1; 105. 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 9 

material is either incident or situation. Incident 
needs no explanation. It is a simple occurrence or 
event, a passing experience. It is a bank failure, 
the arrest of a thief, the bursting of a flood-dyke, 
a football victory, the overturning of a canoe, a 
class rush. One incident must be treated in itself, 
and apart from its consequences. A situation, 
however, presents concretely a significant relation 
between persons and persons, or persons and things 
or circumstances. 1 It is a condition which may 
or may not be followed by certain definite results. 
Although an incident may be detached from a 
course of events, it is complete in itself; although a 
situation may be related more or less closely to the 
current of events, it is itself incomplete. 2 

Suppose a man arrested on a false charge of theft; 
a telegraph operator marooned with no communica- 
tion with the outside world save by his disordered 
instrument; a hard-working Italian deprived by 
a bank failure of the money he had been treasuring 
up for importing his wife and family. These are 
situations. In They, Kipling has supposed a blind 
woman possessed with an overwhelming love of 
children, endowed with a sixth sense, — a capa- 

1 "A situation may be defined as any active relationship 
between character and circumstances." H. S. Canby, A Study 
of the Short-story, p. 43. 

2 "Incidents are groups of continuous details forming a 
complete interest in themselves as ministering to our sense of 
story. ... In Situation, on the other hand, a series of details 
cohere into a single impression without losing the sense of in- 
completeness." R. G. Moulton, Shakespeare as a Dramatic 
Artist, pp. 286-7. 



10 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

bility of association with a disembodied spirit. 
Assume a man happily recovered from a long prison 
experience who realized to the full the degrading 
influence of prison-life. Coppee has used this 
situation in The Substitute. Suppose a baby should 
be born in the rough, immoral atmosphere of a 
California mining camp, and you have the basis for 
Bret Harte's well-known story, The Luck of Roaring 
Camp. Suppose a person should take on the fea- 
tures of that which he constantly beholds. Haw- 
thorne developed this situation in The Great Stone 
Face. The greater number of great stories seem 
to be built upon situations rather than upon in- 
cidents. The greater number of our present-day 
magazine stories are built upon situations. To 
treat a situation adequately, to clothe it in fitting 
incident, may take perhaps a more consummate 
art than to visualize a striking event, but the result- 
ing story is generally much the more satisfying. 
To be made significant and active, the situation 
must gather about itself illustrative incident and 
character; it must result strikingly; it must lead 
progressively to an end. 

Whether, indeed, the Short-story material be 
incident or situation, the interest must progress 
toward a highest point, a logical and emotional 
goal. "In other words, there must be a climax, 
an event remarkable in some respect; and some- 
thing must happen to the character as a result of 
something which he has done; and, as Ho wells 
wishes, the character must express himself in the 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 11 

episodes." l The climax is the focus, the conver- 
ging point of all possible lines of vision for the story. 
It is the apex. Everything must lead either to it 
or away from it. One should be able to look back 
and see just how every step has been tending toward 
it. Matthews says, "The Short-story in which 
nothing happens at all is an absolute impossibility." 2 
This happening, this action at its culmination is the 
climax, the decisive moment of change. Climax, 
however, implies "a steady heightening of interest 
to a full close, rather than the mental or emotional 
jerk occasioned by surprise." 3 It is the natural 
turning-point of a story, the place where for the 
first, one fully realizes the force of incident or 
situation. 

To achieve this climax, one must use a conscious 
method, a design, a plot. 4 Plot is "a fusion of 
details into unity," by means of the "imaginative 
reason"; 5 a weaving together of details for an 
intended pattern. In the Short-story, however, — 
indeed in all dramatic fiction — plot is no simple 
fusion or weaving of details; it is a fusion or weav- 
ing for an end. That end is climax. Plot neces- 
sitates selection from the great mass of possible 

1 Pitkin, Short-story Writing, pp. 27-8. 

2 Brander Matthews, The Philosophy of the Short-story, p. 35. 

3 Albright, The Short-story, p. 51. 

4 Although plot might be interpreted as the full design in 
detail, it is more generally applied to the brief statement of the 
essentials of the plan. In the Short-story, the plot ought to 
be such that it might be expressed in one compact sentence. 

6 Whitcomb, The Study of a Novel, pp. 48-9. 



12 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

details of only such as will harmonize and complete 
the design. It makes possible the steady gradation 
of interest toward the end. It involves, in the 
Short-story, emphasis upon climax so sustained as 
to require the omission of everything which does 
not tend directly towards climax, and of nothing 
which would heighten the effect. Character and 
incident, character and character, incident and 
incident, must be so wrought together that they 
are mutually dependent. "A plot," according to 
Mr. Pitkin, "is a climactic series of events, each of 
which both determines and is determined by the 
characters involved." He says further: "If the 
determination is one-sided, there results no plot, in 
the strict dramatic sense. Thus, suppose the events 
shaped the destiny of the character but were not 
themselves directed by him; the hero would then 
be little more than the passive victim of circum- 
stances, and the story would take on the loose ves- 
ture of flowing adventure, like the yarns of Sinbad, 
the Sailor." 1 The tale is the sum of parts unre- 
lated, while the Short-story is a vital whole. Loosen 
one thread from the web of the Short-story, the 
whole is weakened, and the climax unprovided for. 
The very simplicity of the plot for a story of a single 
situation allows and requires great firmness and 
strength of texture. 

Not only does the Short-story require plot and 
climax — the dramatic essentials — but it must 
produce upon the mind of the reader a single impres- 
1 Pitkin, Short-story Writing, p. 24. 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 13 

sion or effect. This effect is that which will uncon- 
sciously remain fixed as a brooding influence on the 
reader's mind even after the essentials of plot have 
faded from memory. Sometimes, at the end of a 
story, one is able to formulate the impression; more 
often, unless one subjects it to analysis, it remains 
unnamed but none the less powerful. A single 
impression should be, however, so vivid that it is 
capable of analysis. Impressions are generally of 
two kinds — either a feeling, an emotion; or simply 
a sense of the new realization of some truth. Poe 
was a master of effects. In his stories are well 
exemplified the simple impressions of feeling, — of 
impending doom, as in The Pit and the Pendulum; 
of pure horror, as in The Black Cat. Some impres- 
sions may be stated more definitely. The single 
impression of Mrs. Knollys is the beauty of a tri- 
umphant hope. In Daudet's The Last Class, it is 
sympathy for the lovers of the old Alsace-Lorraine. 
In They, it is "the consciousness of the presence of 
the spirits of little children." l The impression of 
The Drums of the Fore and Aft is simply self-sacrifi- 
cing heroism; of Rappaccini 's Daughter it is of beauty 
at once prodigal and dangerous. A situation may 
suggest several different effects. Of these, only one 
may be chosen for emphasis in the Short-story, and 
this one chosen effect will go a long way toward 
determining the progress of the story. "In so far 
as technique is concerned, the single effect is more 

1 Waite and Taylor, Modern Masterpieces of Short Prose 
Fiction, p. xx. 



14 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

fundamental than the dramatic effect. It deter- 
mines much more profoundly the structure of the 
Short-story. Furthermore, it is, one might say, 
an absolute ideal, whereas the dramatic is relative 
to the particular material of each plot. For instance, 
a weak dramatic quality will not ruin a story, pro- 
vided some one emotion or some one idea is vividly 
played upon; but, conversely, there is no hope for 
a story, however dramatic, if it leaves you with 
either no definite impression at all, or else with 
several in conflict and unrelated." 1 

It is the single impression which more than any 
other one thing sets off the Short-story as a separate 
literary form. A novel may have many impressions; 
it may thrill with a wide range of emotions through- 
out its progress. Each varying incident, each minor 
crisis, produces its peculiar impression. Each epi- 
sode of a novel is long enough for the development 
of one impression. When, then, these episodes are 
gathered into one whole, many emotional effects 
may be represented. It is true that some novels do 
seem to produce a single impression. In The Scarlet 
Letter, one feels always that there is no escape from 
the effects of a sin once committed. The whole 
story is developed to insure this impression. Each 
crisis, each new movement, emphasizes it. Yet each 
movement is in itself a new situation with its own 
passing impression. The final impression, too, seems 
the result of the development of a situation in retro- 
spect. This treatment of a situation allows new 
1 Pitkin, Short-story Writing, pp. 22-3. 



THE MODERN ' SHORT-STORY 15 

situations always to arise out of the old. There is 
in this novel, therefore, a method of attaining the 
single impression quite different from that used in 
the Short-story, which is always the progress of a 
situation toward realization. Just as the incidents 
of a Short-story all lead to one climax of action, they 
must all lead, also, to one dominant impression. 
Scattered impressions in the Short-story mean no 
impression, for, within the limits of the modern 
Short-story, one and only one impression can be 
developed with intensity. 

"The first essential for unity of impression is single- 
ness of purpose, resulting in simplicity of plot. The 
end must not only be foreseen from the beginning; 
it must dominate the whole progress of the story." l 
Not only the unity but the intensity of the impression 
is dependent upon climax, is enforced by climax. 
Tone and climax should be in such harmony that 
either one might suggest the other. If the climax 
is a moment of distress, the single impression should 
be sustained as a preparation; if the single impres- 
sion is horror, then the climax should be a moment 
of very intense horror. There have been written 
stories of a single impression and of action without a 
climax. Such stories are mere narrative sketches, 
because they lack " the conflict of forces which results 
in definite action and outcome." 2 They may pro- 
duce, to be sure, a single impression, but one which 

1 Albright, The Short-story, p. 85. 

2 Waite and Taylor, Modern Masterpieces of Short Prose 
Fiction, p. x. 



16 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

lacks the utmost definiteness, distinctness. One is 
conscious of it, but one cannot see it, or feel it. It is 
as water-vapor, which must come in contact with cold 
before it is precipitated in visible, tangible form as 
rain. Climax is the point of precipitation of a single 
impression. Again, suppose a person should see, 
stretching before him to the horizon, a succession of 
low undulating hills, each hill covered with charred 
stumps and scorched tree-snags. The impression 
might be simply that of gloom. Suppose, then, 
that this person should sight on a hill the still smok- 
ing ruins of a dwelling. The scene has at once an 
objective point. Thus in a Short-story, the single 
impression is at once centralized and vivified by 
climax. 

The kinds of impression from which the Short- 
story writer may choose are myriad. As the varia- 
tions of life, so are the possible impressions to be 
gained from man's changing relationships in life. 
Impressions are intellectual or emotional. If the 
impression is only of ingenuity — such as dexterity 
in solving a problem — it is classed as intellectual. If, 
however, the impression is centered upon the effect 
of the solution on a main character, it becomes emo- 
tional. Ingenuity has then resulted in a pleasurable 
satisfaction of curiosity, in surprise, or admiration. 
Even these, however, are but intellectual emotions. 
They do not come from the heart, they would not in 
themselves serve as motives for action. The Short- 
story demands that its impression be truly emotional. 
If the story depended solely on satisfying curiosity, 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 17 

then the more the curiosity could be stimulated by 
building puzzle upon puzzle, the greater the ingenuity 
needed to find a solution. Although the impression 
would still remain single, there would be no limit to 
the number of incidents allowed in a story. Incident 
might be piled upon incident endlessly: with every 
addition the story would become the more effective. 
The detective story may thus fail of being a true 
Short-story. Such a story as Poe's The Purloined 
Letter is, as Mr. Canby suggests, a tale in Short-story 
form. Such a story, however, might become a true 
Short-story, if an emotional impression could be added 
and could be made to coincide with it in a climax. 
For a true Short-story, a single emotional impression 
is absolutely essential. 

The length of a Short-story depends upon the 
situation or incident with which one has to deal. 
This situation may take five pages to develop to a 
fitting climax; it may take sixty. If one remembers, 
however, that a single impression must be produced, 
through a single situation wrought to a climax, the 
length of the story will not go far wrong. Poe says: 
"The ordinary novel is objectionable from its length. 
... As it cannot be read at one sitting, it deprives 
itself, of course, of the immense force derivable from 
totality. Worldly interests intervening during the 
pauses of perusal modify, annul, or counteract in a 
greater or less degree, the impressions of the book. 
But simple cessation in reading would, of itself, be 
sufficient to destroy the true unity. In the brief 
tale, however, the author is enabled to carry out the 



18 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

fullness of his intention, be it what it may. During 
the hour of perusal the soul of the reader is at the 
writer's control. There are no external or extrinsic 
influences resulting from weariness or interruptions." * 
The more swiftly, then, the story moves, the more 
powerful will be the impression. 

Much the same principle is employed in determin- 
ing the time in which the action should be made to 
take place, the place of the action, and the number of 
characters introduced. So long as unity of impres- 
sion and sustained emphasis on a climactic situation 
are not violated, it makes little difference whether 
the action requires five minutes or fifty years; 
whether the place be varied from the north pole to 
the torrid zone; whether the characters number 
one or one hundred. Usually, however, the Short- 
story will require that only one main character be 
introduced. Secondary characters are generally in- 
troduced as foils to the main character. It is 
conceivable that even in a Short-story a mob might 
have the principal part. Of course, in such a case, 
one would treat the mob, not as a collection of in- 
dividuals, but as a whole. Short-story principles 
would yet apply. We are ready, then, for a 
definition: The Short-story is a narrative producing a 
single emotional impression by means of sustained 
emphasis on a single climactic incident or situation. 

Poe was the originator of the modern Short-story 
in America. He first formulated a philosophy for 
the Short-story; he first applied the principles 
1 Poe, On Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 19 

successfully in his own art. It will, perhaps, be 
useful, then, to compare the definition just given 
with the principles laid down by him. He says: 
"A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. 
If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accom- 
modate his incidents; but having conceived with 
deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to 
be wrought out, he then invents such incidents, he 
then combines such events as may best aid him in 
establishing this preconceived effect If his very 
initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this 
effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the 
whole composition, there should be no word written, 
of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to 
the one pre-established design." l Poe has here 
emphasized unity of impression as fundamental: 
all the incidents must establish this "preconceived 
effect" Next, the first sentence must tend directly 
to this effect: briefly, no time must be lost in the 
beginning of the real story. Lastly, the whole must 
be governed by the principle of selection: no slight- 
est detail whose tendency is not toward this pre- 
established design can be admitted. The gist of 
the paragraph is, briefly: The essential mark of the 
Short-story is unity of impression gained by a domi- 
nating and selective emphasis on a preconceived 
design. The definition already stated accords, then, 
with this summary of Poe's; for a dominating is a 
sustained emphasis, and selective is understood in 
the expression "a climactic situation" In this 

1 Poe, On Hawthorne. 



20 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

expression, however, there is included more than 
selective emphasis for unity of effect; there is a 
climax. Poe worked in the belief that the strongest 
impression was reached only through the strongest 
incident expressive of that impression. In weaker 
hands than Poe's, however, the Short-story gov- 
erned by such a principle would have dwindled 
to mere impressionism. A safeguard has been 
added, therefore, and this safeguard is climactic 
plot. 

Although, in the statement of the definition, the 
technically perfect Short-story has been assumed, 
it should be clearly understood that there are many 
Short-stories, — good Short-stories — which fail of 
technical perfection. They may admit of more or 
less digression, they may reach several crises which 
in their force are almost climaxes. No one doubts 
that Hale's The Man Without a Country is really 
effective, yet one could scarcely call it a technically 
perfect Short-story. It is based, it is true, on a 
single climactic situation: a man has expressed a 
desire never again to hear the name of his native land. 
The final climax comes at the death of the man. 
Yet there are other climaxes : where Lieutenant Nolan 
reads from The Lay of the Last Minstrel the lines 

"Breathes there the man, with soul so dead 
Who never to himself hath said, — 
'This is my own, my native land!'" 

where he dances with Mrs. Graff; where his bravery 
is rewarded by the Captain; and where he acts as 
interpreter for the poor slaves who wish to be taken 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 21 

back home. After each one of these climaxes, the 
interest wanes and is gradually increased for the 
next climax. In short, emphasis has not been 
sustained. Hawthorne was constantly violating the 
ideal Short-story structure by an unnecessary in- 
sistence on the moral of his story. He loved the 
symbolic too well to keep from over-emphasizing it. 
Yet Hawthorne's stories are so delicately wrought 
that they live in spite of the digressions. What has 
been done — even by the masters — is, however, 
not always a safe rule of practice. The master in 
every art is allowed some privileges denied to ama- 
teurs. Beginners should first of all work in accord- 
ance with the laws of their art. They should aim at 
nothing short of technical perfection. Otherwise, 
they will unwittingly fall into blunders which will 
make the story ineffective; otherwise, they can 
never hope to attain to proficiency. Beginners will 
find difficulty enough in trying to write an effective 
Short-story when they are following certain rules; 
they would find much greater difficulty if there were 
no rules to follow. The Short-story, in any case, 
must be effective. 

Of the Short-story, there are three main types, — 
the story of action, the story of character, the story 
of setting. These kinds may be combined, so long 
as one element, action, character, or setting, remains 
predominant. Thus a character story may have, 
also, action and setting as auxiliary. One might 
have character — action — setting; action — charac- 
ter — setting; setting — action — character. To 



22 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

vary one of these elements will change a whole story. 
Since there are innumerable situations in this life of 
ours, and as many different motives for action as 
there are actions; since no two characters are identi- 
cal; and since in setting, one has the whole world to 
choose from, there is little likelihood of a dearth 
in Short-story material. A story, too, may be 
changed simply by the attitude or the purpose of its 
writer, by humor, by contrast, by local color. 

Although no complete classification is here at- 
tempted, it may be useful briefly to survey several 
of the most common kinds of the modern Short- 
story. These are "the mystery and psychological 

o story; "the problem story; the story of social and 
economic conditions; of a special class or locality; of 

6 a special mood; the story of adventure; and the 
story of symbolism. It is clear that one story may 
sometimes be classed under several different heads. 
For example, Markheim is a psychological story; 
it might also be classed as a problem story. A story 
of a certain locality might also be a story treating of 
social and economic conditions. 

Under the mystery story may be placed ghost 
stories, stories of the psychologically occult, detec- 
tive stories, and simple instances of the unexplained. 
Stories of this character are O'Brien's What Was It? 
A Mystery, The Horla by Maupassant, William 
Wilson by Poe, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 
The mystery story is popular among beginners, 
since it is thought that the narration of the unusual 
or marvelous cannot fail of attracting attention. To 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 23 

make a mystery story convincing, is, however, a 
difficult task. Unless the reader's imagination is so 
firmly gripped that for the moment the story seems 
true, no real interest is awakened. To treat the 
unreal so that it appears real is a work for a skilled 
artist. 

There is also the problem story. The problem 
may be solved or unsolved. Stockton's The Lady 
or the Tiger? is a perfect example. Here the question 
is so artfully put that it can never be answered. 
Ordinarily, however, the problem is solved, as in 
Markheim and in Hamlin Garland's The Branch 
Road. This kind of story, too, is difficult. It 
requires that the writer have an exceedingly firm 
grasp of the situation. Before the proper time, the 
reader's sympathies must not be swayed too much in 
one direction or too much in the other. There must 
be suspense. Yet the solution, if there be a solu- 
tion, must be prepared for; it must seem natural. 
Often the problem story requires that the writer do 
double duty: that he show convincingly vacillation 
of mind in the main character, and that he stimulate 
temporarily a similar vacillation in the mind of the 
reader. Beginners should remember, too, that a 
story which leads one straight toward an end, and 
then stops with a jerk, is not a problem story. 

Closely allied to the problem story is that which 
does not directly indicate a social or economic prob- 
lem, but as surely implies its existence in the basis 
of a story. Such are the stories based upon strikes, 
upon class hatred and distinctions, upon the treat- 



24 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

ment of the criminal, upon the miserable life of those 
in the crowded districts of the cities, upon the immi- 
grant question, upon business fraudulence, upon 
political dishonesty, upon all those social and eco- 
nomic conditions which are of vital importance to 
the world at present. Of this kind of story the 
magazines are full. It is popular, and justly so. 
"The writer must be in touch with the thought 
and feeling of the public at any given time. ... If 
what he writes is worth anything, it must help the 
public to think out the problems which are actually 
before it. . . . What people like best is to know of 
something that falls in naturally with their own lives, 
and consciously or unconsciously, helps them in a 
practical way to live. Unless it really touches their 
interests it counts for little." x 

Then there is the story of a special class — the 
story of a certain locality, of a certain section, even 
of a business or industry. In these, the aim is faith- 
fully to depict the individual characteristics belong- 
ing to such a class or to such a locality. This land 
is so broad that it has allowed people to develop 
under many different environments, each of which 
has its own distinct type. Thus we have had Short- 
story writers for New England, for the extreme 
south, for the middle south, for New York, for Cali- 
fornia and the gold-seekers, for the middle west, 
for the southwest, for the north. 2 Scarcely a region 

1 Sherwin Cody, Story Writing and Journalism, p. 106. 

2 For an interesting discussion of this kind of story see The 
American Short-story, by Elias Lieberman. 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 25 

but has had its spokesman. Then there are the 
stories of mining regions and of the lumber camps. 
Under this type, too, are stories devoted to a profes- 
sion, — medicine, law, teaching, the ministry, and 
business. 

Not only is there the story of some special class or 
locality, but the story of a special mood or emotion. 
Here are classed the horror story, the story of pathos, 
the purely humorous story, the love story. These 
stories depend much on the defmiteness of the single 
impression. Beginners are liable to one of two mis- 
takes: either they will over-emphasize the emotion 
till it becomes ridiculous or melodramatic and 
unnatural, or they will dilute it till it is as flatly 
tasteless as a dish of unsalted mush. Stories of 
emotion must be handled with restraint. 

No one should leave out of this list the delight of 
the small boy — the adventure story in which "the 
interest of the reader centers in what the characters 
do instead of in what they are." 1 Here may be 
classed stories of railroad wrecks, of aeroplane flights, 
of strange escapes from fire and flood, of robberies, 
of tramp life, or of bear-hunts. One might class 
here, also, the stories depending on invention, — on 
wireless telegraphy, for example, — or on some un- 
known invention wholly in the mind of the writer, 
whereby he is enabled to accomplish some wonder- 
ful feat. These stories are ordinarily what have been 
called incident stories as contrasted with situation 
stories. In the adventure story, one must be careful 
1 J. Berg Esenwein, Studying the Short-story, p. 4. 



26 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

that the Short-story does not degenerate into a tale 
through the relation of a succession of thrilling 
incidents. 

The story of symbolism was in use long before 
the modern Short-story came to be recognized. 
Its age, however, has made it no less amenable to 
Short-story form. Here belong the parable and 
the allegory, both of which are especially designed 
to teach "utilitarian or spiritual truths." Each 
form has its advantages. The actors of the allegory 
are more individual than those of the parable. 
"But although more individual, the allegory is less 
human than the parable; for the happenings of 
the parable are always probable, while those of the 
allegory may be probable, improbable, or so fantas- 
tic as to be wholly impossible. 1 " The difficulty 
in all stories of symbolism is that of keeping the 
moral in due subjection. It is as hard to keep the 
point of a story covered by symbol as it is to keep 
a lively kitten hidden in a basket. The moral may 
be suggested; it should not be directly stated. The 
point may be all right, but bald didacticism has 
gone out of style. People generally prefer their 
sermons straight. In a story, they do not wish the 
lesson to be too obvious. They wish to feel that 
whatever lesson there is lurking underneath a story 
has been found by their own superior interpretative 
powers. 

Not every story need be didactic, yet every story 
should aim to have a worthy purpose, be it to enter- 

1 Harriott Ely Fansler, Types of Prose Narratives, p. 117. 



THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 27 

tain or to instruct. "The author is bound to inter- 
pret, else literature were as soulless as a photograph. 
He cannot escape interpretation; for it is only 
because experience means something to him that 
he cares to extend and make it permanent by giving 
it literary expression." l 

Perhaps more widely read at the present time than 
any other form of literature, it must be that the 
Short-story has a mission. In an inspiring article 
on The Future of the Short-story, Mr. E. C. Black 
says that he considers the Short-story "a more 
powerful antidote to the most dangerous tendencies 
in the life of the present day than any of the elabo- 
rate schemes of social reform can possibly be." He 
claims for the Short-story writers that "they are 
vindicating the ideal element in fiction, for they 
are painting life as it is, and painting it from a point 
of ethical and ideal insight. . . . They are show- 
ing that human nature is, after all, a noble thing; 
that lowly folk, bowed with labor and environed by 
stern enough conditions of time and place, may be, 
like the king's daughter, all glorious within. . . . 
They are bringing man nearer man. . . . They are 
awakening men and women to the goodness as well 
as to the strangeness and fascination of their kind. 
. . . They are revealing the identity of human 
nature." 2 

Whether or not Short-story writers deserve this 

1 Albright, The Short-story, p. 178. 

2 E. C. Black, The Future of the Short-story, International 
Monthly, 1: 214. 



28 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

praise, it is certain that they may be of inestimable 
value to mankind. They may cheer through em- 
phasis often upon the joyous and amusing in life; 
they may instruct by giving people broadened 
visions of the world; they may inspire to worthy 
motive and noble action by a stimulation of the best 
emotions, by education to thought upon "whatso- 
ever things are true, whatsoever things are honor- 
able, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
things are of good report." 



II 

THE GERMINAL IDEA 

More or less indefmiteness frequently attaches 
to the term germinal idea. It is made synonymous 
with motive, theme, purpose; with the subject of 
a story; and since subject is loosely used, it may 
even be confused with title. It is regarded as 
almost an abbreviated plot; in short, as the kernel 
of the story. It is true that the germinal idea may 
take any of these forms; that it may suggest them 
or develop into them. Yet theme, motive, sub- 
ject, title, purpose, are not synonymous, either 
with each other or with germinal idea. To clear 
up this vagueness it may be well to explain each 
of these terms by illustration in a single story. 

The story is briefly as follows: Four outcasts, 
among whom as leader is a well-known gambler, 
on their way from one village to another are held 
for a week snow-bound on a mountain on which 
they had unnecessarily stopped to rest. They all 
meet death before help reaches them. The title of 
this story is The Outcasts of Poker Flat; the subject, 
how four outcasts met their death in a mountain 
snow-storm. The purpose is to show the essential 
soundness of heart which may coexist with out- 
ward, conventional badness. The theme is the ac- 
ceptance of chance as a controlling motive. Motive 



30 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

is that which controls the individual actor. The 
Duchess had a motive in halting the journey; Oak- 
hurst had a motive for wishing the continuance of 
the journey; Uncle Billy had a motive for depart- 
ing with the mules; Mother Ship ton had a motive 
in refusing to eat her share of the provisions. The 
germinal idea may have been one of several things; 
perhaps an incident, perhaps an impression of the 
wild lawlessness of a California mining camp, or 
of the calculating nature of John Oakhurst. The 
difference between these terms is, perhaps, now 
obvious. The title is the name by which a story 
is distinguished. The subject is the statement, in 
narrative terms, of what the story is about. The 
purpose is the writer's object in telling a particular 
story. The theme is the basic fact upon which the 
plot of the story hinges. Motive, sometimes the bor- 
rowed musical term motif, is commonly used as the 
equivalent of theme. Yet motive in this sense is mis- 
leading, for it is applied as well to the unseen spring 
of action for an individual. Motive is that which 
leads a certain person to act in a certain way under 
certain given circumstances. Yet the so-called mo- 
tive of a story involves an interplay of motives of 
the characters. Thus title and subject, purpose, theme, 
and motive, though allied, are essentially distinct. 

The germinal idea is, however, none of these.- 
It is the bare, undeveloped idea 1 from which the 

1 "An idea arrives without effort; a form can only be wrought 
out by patient labor." Henry van Dyke, Preface to 1901 edi- 
tion of The Other Wise Man. 



THE GERMINAL IDEA 31 

imagination receives its original thrill. It is essen- 
tially the starting-point of a story. It is not the 
beginning of the actual plotting any more than it is 
of the actual writing. It is that which first awakens 
the consciousness of a writer to a possible story. 
It is a mere suggestion from which a story may in 
time grow. One cannot be sure that a germinal 
idea will ever be fruitful. Occasionally, it may be 
utilized at once; frequently it will be dormant in 
the mind for weeks and then suddenly become 
active; sometimes it must be coaxed into activity 
by long reflection. Rarely does the germinal idea 
reveal just what sort of story may result, since it 
is but seldom that a whole story presents itself at 
once. The germinal idea may or may not be pre- 
sented along with certain features of its develop- 
ment. It is indefinite in quantity; perhaps a word, 
possibly a whole plot. Sometimes, too, it may prove 
mistaken seed, — very good, perhaps, for an essay 
or a sketch, but unavailable for a Short-story. Not 
every germinal idea has its Short-story, but every 
Short-story has its germinal idea. For such pro- 
ductive idea, search must be painstakingly kept up. 
In this chapter, then, we shall try to treat of the 
germinal idea in its variety and sources, and of the 
principles which will govern its possible growth 
toward plot. 

The beginner's first question is always, What shall 
I write about? It is, indeed, a vexing question. 
Seated comfortably in his chair, he stares for an 
hour blankly at ceiling and side-wall and carpet; 



32 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

then turns to gaze distractedly out of the window 
into the tree-tops. Or a maiden wistfully watches 
a sunset and expects something astounding or 
beautiful to flash across her mind, — a well-developed 
story idea. It is little wonder that these amateurs 
grumble, for they have failed to look understand- 
ingly. Beside the one, there may lie, spread out on 
the floor, a daily newspaper, and on the front of 
it there may be a cartoon with the picture of a 
man pleading for re-election, and against all charges 
of indiscretion and unfitness urging simply, "I 
want to die in the harness." The girl, too, failed to 
catch the scrap of conversation of two women who 
passed the window, and she did not notice the 
pained expression on the face of the delivery man 
as he hurried around the house. There is no re- 
pository in ceiling or carpet, in sunset or tree-tops, 
from which the aspiring young Short-story writer 
may draw at will. He may not scrutinize a cata- 
logue and then order C.O.D. ten pounds of Early 
Grand Success Short-story seeds. These seeds are 
free to him who seeks them with open eyes and 
zealous carefulness, for they are scattered all about 
him. 

If, then, the writer will train himself in thoughtful- 
ness and observation, he will soon have story-germs 
of all kinds. An incident, an imagined situation, 
a statement of abstract truth, some title, some 
passing impression, — any one of these may serve 
as a germinal idea. Although the usual method of 
finding story-germs may vary for different people, 



THE GERMINAL IDEA 33 

perhaps the most frequent story-germ for all people 
alike is incident. It appeals because it is already 
narrative. To imagine its story possibilities is 
generally easier than to see possibilities in some- 
thing which does not of itself make a narrative 
appeal. This incident may be some personal ex- 
perience or the experience of a friend; it may be 
actual fact; it may be an imagined occurrence; it 
may be a suggestive historical event or incident — 
such as the hanging of a spy during the Civil War, 
or the quelling of a riot on a city street. 

Situations real or imagined, too, are frequently 
story-germs. These situations may be simply 
expressed in the abstract with the character a man, 
a woman, a child; or they may regard some definite 
person under certain definite circumstances. Haw- 
thorne used both sorts, yet usually his situations 
were indefinite. A few chosen from his American 
Note-Books will serve as examples: 

"An old looking-glass. Somebody finds out the 
secret of making all the images that have been 
reflected in it pass back again to its surface." 

"A partially insane man to believe himself the 
Provincial Governor or other great official of Massa- 
chusetts. The scene might be the Province House." 

"A company of persons to drink a certain medic- 
inal preparation, which would prove a poison or the 
contrary according to their different characters." 

"Some man of powerful character to command 
a person, morally subjected to him, to perform 
some act. The commanding person suddenly to 



34 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

die; and for all the rest of his life, the subjected one 
continues to perform that act." 

"A father confessor — his reflections on charac- 
ter, and the contrast of the inward man with the 
outward, as he looks around on his congregation, 
all whose secret sins are known to him." 

"A person to be the death of his beloved in trying 
to raise her to more than mortal perfection; yet 
this should be a comfort to him for having aimed 
so highly and holily." In this situation, one recog- 
nizes the finished story, The Birthmark. 

"Two persons to be expecting some occurrence, 
and watching for the two principal actors in it, and 
to find that the occurrence is even then passing, 
and that they themselves are the two actors." 

"Two persons, by mutual agreement, to make 
their wills in each other's favor, then to wait im- 
patiently for one another's death, and both to be 
informed of the desired event at the same time. 
Both, in most joyous sorrow, hasten to be present 
at the funeral, meet, and find themselves hoaxed." 

"A change from a gay young girl to an old woman; 
the melancholy events, the effects of which have 
clustered around her character, and gradually im- 
bued it with their influence till she becomes a lover 
of sick-chambers, taking pleasure in receiving dying 
breaths and in laying out the dead; also having her 
mind full of funeral reminiscences, and possessing 
more acquaintances beneath the burial turf than 
above it." 

Hawthorne's story situations were of the morbid 



THE GERMINAL IDEA 35 

and the fanciful. In that respect they are not good 
examples for the beginner, who would almost surely 
make a failure of them. Yet they serve to show 
how slight may be the germinal idea upon which 
a story may be constructed. To develop a story 
based upon a bare situation requires a strong crea- 
tive imagination. 

Simple impressions, likewise, of character, of 
action, or of setting may be germinal ideas. So 
definitely does character write itself in one's appear- 
ance that a face may stir one's narrative imagina- 
tion. A kindly open face may suggest one thing; 
a pinched, pale,- but kindly face another; and a dark, 
lowering countenance and restless eyes, yet another. 
Each" one of us, however young and inexperienced, 
has seen some faces, perhaps in the waiting-room 
of a railroad station, which have remained dis- 
tinctly in memory and have more than once chal- 
lenged the imagination. Perhaps it may have been 
the face of a nun, or of a tavern-keeper, of a peddler, 
or of a woman whose eyes had gazed so long upon a 
forest lake that they seemed to reflect its blueness 
and its dancing wildness. A person's mannerisms, 
his mode of dressing, his carriage might all suggest 
stories. For instance, a student who walked with 
head erect and eyes always directed ahead, whose 
feet seemed always to be placed precisely on the same 
two rows of bricks on the walk, who always turned 
corners sharply, might suggest to his associates 
a person who could scarcely cope with any great 
change. Imagine that person then facing some 



36 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

decided change and a story would result. Watch 
a person's dealings with a clerk in a store, notice 
passing remarks, and one will often gain vivid im- 
pressions of character which may be fruitful for 
stories. "A face seen in a crowd, gossip overheard in 
a tavern, a conversation at a street door, the revela- 
tions of hostile eyes in meeting or parting, the 
sudden passing of insignificant men and women 
across the beam of his questing searchlight — these 
are enough to excite his imagination, to start the 
wheels of fantasy; and if he will but continue to 
see vividly the dramatic possibilities of life, and to 
report truthfully what he sees, he need never lack 
material for the warp and woof of the stories he 
can spin." l 

An impression may be of setting. The setting 
itself might be of use in a story, but it might simply 
create an impression. A large hotel set in beautiful 
grounds at a summer resort is deserted. Stacks of 
dishes stand on the tables, doors are ajar, beds are 
thrown open, but left unmade, a bottle of whisky, 
half-used, stands in a cupboard, dishes of dried-up 
ice-cream are left on stands in the hallways, the 
registry book lies on the desk, the window-shades 
are not drawn. This setting might or might not be 
used in a story, but undoubtedly it stirs one's imag- 
ination. Instinctively one asks, What happened 
here? On the other hand, Stevenson was impressed 
by the wildness of the sea and rocks in San dag Bay; 
from the impression he created The Merry Men. 

1 W. J. Dawson (1909), North American Review, 190: p. 805. 



THE GERMINAL IDEA 37 

The setting became a vital part of his story, not 
just a stimulation to the imagination. 1 In A Gossip 
on Romance, Stevenson has said: "One thing in life 
calls for another; there is a fitness in events and 
places. The sight of a pleasant arbour puts it in 
our mind to sit there. One place suggests work, 
another idleness, a third early rising and long ram- 
bles in the dew. The effect of night, of any flowing 
water, of lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, 
of the open ocean, calls up in the mind an army of 
anonymous desires and pleasures. Something, we 
feel, should happen; we know not what, yet we 
proceed in quest of it. And many of the happiest 
hours of life fleet by us in this vain attendance on 
the genius of the place and moment. . . . Some 
places speak distinctly. Certain dank gardens 
cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand 
to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for ship- 
wreck. Other spots again seem to abide their 
destiny, suggestive and impenetrable, 'miching 
mallecho.' The inn at Burford Bridge with its 
arbours and green garden and silent, eddying river 
. . . still seems to wait the coming of the appropriate 
legend. Without these ivied walls, behind these 
old green shutters some further business smoulders, 
waiting for its hour. The old Hawes Inn at the 
Queen's Ferry makes a similar call upon my fancy. 
1 Hawthorne realized clearly the value of setting as a ger- 
minal idea. Here again is one of his notes: "The scene of a 
story or sketch to be laid within the light of a street lantern; 
the time, when the lamp is near going out; and the catastrophe 
to be simultaneous with the last flickering gleam." 



38 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

. . . So it is with names and faces; so it is with 
incidents that are idle and inconclusive in them- 
selves, and yet seem like the beginning of some 
quaint romance, which the all-careless author leaves 
untold. How many of these romances have we not 
seen determine at their birth; how many people 
have met us with a look of meaning in their eye, 
and sunk at once into trivial acquaintances; to 
how many places have we not drawn near, with 
express intimations — 'here my destiny awaits me' 
— and we have but dined there and passed on ! I 
have lived both at the Hawes and Burford in a 
perpetual flutter, on the heels, as it seemed, of 
some adventure that should justify the place; but 
though the feeling led me to bed at night and called 
me again at morning in one unbroken round of 
pleasure and suspense, nothing befell me in either 
worth remark. The man of the hour had not yet 
come; but some day, I think, a boat shall put off 
from the Queen's Ferry, fraught with a dear cargo, 
and some frosty night a horseman, on a tragic errand, 
rattle with his whip upon the green shutters of the 
inn at Burford." 

Again, the germinal idea may be a mood, a pass- 
ing fancy, a contrast of some kind, an illustration, 
even a name appropriate to a main character. A 
title may come to one with suggestive force and 
demand for itself a fitting story, for, as we shall see 
later, 1 every title should be to a certain degree sug- 
gestive of the story it heads. To some minds, the 
1 For the full discussion of title see chapter VI. 



THE GERMINAL IDEA 39 

title is frequently the story-germ; others make it 
even the last touch in the building of a story. The 
bare statement of a truth; a proverb; perhaps, a 
moral; the theme, which is the very heart of a story, 
may at times appear as germinal ideas. These 
occur, however, not at all frequently, and with good 
reason; for a truth or proverb is a summation of 
experience, not an inspiration to experience. It 
may enforce by causing reflection, but it rarely 
stirs the imagination creatively. A proverb would 
have to be analyzed into its facts before it could 
begin to take shape as a story. To use it as a ger- 
minal idea seems a little like the process of pulling 
an alarm-clock to pieces for the sheer joy of putting 
it together again. Yet to some, even these abstrac- 
tions might prove valuable — particularly to those 
whose aim is to teach a lesson or point a moral. 

Experience and reading are the two great sources 
of material. Under experience, one should include 
not only that which is actual and personal, but that 
which is observed. If one is to write, one must see. 
It is true here as elsewhere that "familiarity breeds 
contempt." One is generally on the lookout for 
the striking and interesting away from home. 
Diaries are full of such records. Yet rarely does one 
notice the things that are easily under one's eye. 
Their nearness seems commonly to presuppose 
insignificance. The Short-story writer, neverthe- 
less, "gets his material from nature and human 
life," x which are just as true and interesting in the 
1 Charity Dye, The Story-Teller's Art, p. 21. 



40 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

spot where he lives, in the business in which he is 
occupied, as they would be in a cannibal-inhabited 
island on the far side of the world. Everywhere 
man is contending, whether with his fellow-man, 
or with nature, or with himself. One cannot 
always witness the struggle, but one can watch the 
effects, can study the motives, and note the forces 
gathering for the conflict. 

"Queer things are happening all around us, if we 
have eyes to see them as queer or interesting events." 1 
This power to see and understand may be, indeed 
must be, developed until the writer becomes almost 
a magnet for Short-story ideas. His imagination 
must become so sensitive that even commonplaces 
will set him to thinking in a narrative direction, and 
this can happen only when the writer moves in the 
midst of life and responds sympathetically to life's 
emotions. He must be in tune. "In the very be- 
ginning of his work, then, the story-writer must lay 
his senses open to the world about him. He must 
observe the speech and actions of his fellow-men, 
study their expressions, reflect upon their character, 
sympathetically interpret motives, leaping over the 
bridge of personality and making common cause with 
other people's feelings. And eventually he must be 
able to reproduce on the stage of his own mind 
something of that wonderful interaction by which 
we human beings are woven and interwoven into the 
complex web of humanity." 2 "All the earth is full 

1 Sherwin Cody, Story-writing and Journalism, pp. 40-41. 

2 Albright, The Short-story, p. 17. 



THE GERMINAL IDEA 41 

of tales to him who listens and does not drive away 
the poor from his door. The poor are the best of 
tale-tellers; for they must lay their ear to the ground 
every night." l 

Much of one's personal experience, also, is rich as 
a seed-plot of germinal ideas. Experience, be it 
crucial or trivial, is interesting, — at least, to the 
person who has had it. One has real emotions with 
which to deal, undoubted motives, actual events 
whose causes may be definitely traced. An incident 
itself may be inspiration enough. Much, however, 
of one's daily experience becomes suggestive through 
reflection. Every day we are all turning over in 
our minds incident after incident. We change here 
a cause, there a motive; the outcome is different. 
Suddenly one starts in astonishment; for there, 
perhaps, is a story one had never suspected. Thus 
even the details may become significant for material. 
Even a dream, if vivid and remembered, may con- 
tain a germinal idea. Suppose a person be required 
to serve a jail sentence in three-hour periods, one 
period each day. It is easy to see how, if the sen- 
tence be long, the suffering of the man enduring it 
might be acute. This situation is, of course, ex- 
tremely improbable. It is but a dream situation, 
yet it might have narrative possibilities. Every one 
has some small store, at least, of vivid and valuable 
story material within his own experience. One need 
not be a restless globe-trotter, nor busied with many 

1 Kipling, Preface to Life's Handicap. Quoted by J. B. 
Esenwein, Studying the Short-story, p. 148. 



42 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

interests, to gain such material. The man who 
spends all his years in his native village, the work- 
man who day after day guides an electric gimlet in 
a factory, may also find in actual life the germs of 
possible stories. 

One need not depend entirely upon experience, 
observed or personal, so long as one can read. The 
sciences, as physics, chemistry, geology, psychol- 
ogy, mechanics, are rich in suggestions for stories 
of strange and unusual phenomena. History, es- 
pecially biography, ought to be valuable as source 
material. Take in one life all the undeveloped 
situations — those which never reached any definite 
result; take the developed situations and realize 
their possibilities in other lives under utterly different 
circumstances, and one should reap a harvest of 
story material. Better than all of these, however, 
for the hunting of ideas, is the daily newspaper. 
Its supply is exhaustless. There, one may find an 
actual incident such as may be in itself useful, an 
incident which may suggest a situation. Headlines, 
cartoons, even want advertisements or "lost" notices 
may be enough to start ideas. From the first page 
to the last, at the bottom of a page or at the top, in 
fine print or in bold type — anywhere, except per- 
haps in real-estate and insurance notes, the obituary 
columns and marriage-license department, or in the 
stock-exchange and market quotings, germinal ideas 
may be hidden. Equipped with a newspaper, even 
a local newspaper, a notebook, and an imagination, 
one should not suffer for lack of story-ideas. 



THE GERMINAL IDEA 43 

To gather story-ideas is one thing; to develop a 
story from a bare idea is quite another. From 
among the many ideas that present themselves, one 
must be chosen. This one may have several mani- 
festations; from it, several different stories might 
result. One must first test the germinal idea for 
its possible manifestations and then choose that one 
which will make the most worthy story. One must 
ask whether the story might be exclusively of action, 
of character, or setting; whether it might allow 
development into a character story, an action story, 
a setting story; whether it might be a psychological 
story, a problem story, a story of symbolism. If the 
germinal idea is a character hint, one should decide 
what sort of character is to be represented. Could 
any other sort be suggested by this idea? In what 
ways would the character be revealed? In what 
different circumstances might he be placed? Are 
any of these circumstances essentially dramatic; 
that is, will they yield a plot? Should the germinal 
idea be an incident, one should ask a different set 
of questions. Is this incident the basis of an action 
story? Is it significant of anything? Is it dramatic? 
Could it serve as the main incident of a story? Is it 
perhaps a minor incident of some other story? If 
so, of what kind of story? What sort of characters 
would be necessary? Could it be a character story 
or a story of setting? Thus, whatever the idea, its 
possible manifestations must be tested before one 
can conclude what is the one best way of telling the 
story. 



44 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

A germinal idea capable of several different story 
manifestations might, notwithstanding, fail to result 
in a worthy Short-story. H. G. Wells has said that 
a Short-story may be "as trivial as a Japanese print 
of insects seen closely between grass stems or as 
spacious as the prospect of the plain of Italy from 
Monte Mottarone." The germinal idea may be 
trivial. "Yet the Short-story has been raised into 
literature only in those fortunate times when skill, 
or the circumstances of the moment, have given its 
slight fabric a serious purpose, a worthy substance, 
or consummate art. It can be light, it can be 
graceful, it can be amusing, it can be airy. But 
triviality kills it." 1 In other words, one must have 
for one's story a telling theme, — such a theme as 
bears closely on some deep-rooted fact of human 
nature. Without this theme a story might be 
perfect technically, yet fail to "capture the mind of 
the reader" or "make his heart really throb with 
anxiety about the result." 2 

"The peculiar note of the Short-story at its best 
is the importance of the individual soul, be the 
surroundings of the humblest, or the most sordid. 
It is the heroism, the futility, the humor, the pathos, 
the inherent worth and beauty of life in the narrowest 
circumstances, that are the themes of the great 
writers of the Short-story." 3 Even though a story 

1 Canby, A Study of the Short-story, pp. 75-6. 

2 Blaisdell, Composition-Rhetoric, p. 268. 

3 E. C. Black, The Future of the Short-story: International 
Monthly, 1: 205-216 (p. 214). 



THE GERMINAL IDEA 45 

may be possessed of the glamour of the Orient, and 
interest through its novelty, it must reflect the 
sadness and the gladness, the hopelessness and 
optimism of human endeavor, if it would live in the 
hearts of men. It must not be unimportant. 

The Short-story is limited in another way: it 
must be new and striking, or no one would ever care 
to read it. The first aim of a magazine article is to 
instruct; that of the Short-story is to entertain. 
It may be based on an old theme, but it must be 
told in a new way. People are easily bored; they 
do not care to hear the same thing over and over 
again without variation. "Hackneyed subjects now 
and then are treated in so original a manner as to 
bring the whole story above the commonplace level, 
but that is a performance too unusual for even a 
genius to dally with often. Editors and public 
tired long ago of the poor boy whose industry at 
last brought him the hand of his employer's daughter; 
the pale-faced, sweet-eyed young thing whose 
heroism in stamping out the fire enabled her to pay 
off the mortgage; the recovery of the missing will; 
the cruel stepmother; answering a prayer which 
has been overheard; the strange case of mistaken 
identity; honesty rewarded; a noble revenge; a 
child's influence; and so on to a long-drawn-out 
end." x A Short-story must make one think. A 
hackneyed subject follows the already deep groove 
in one's brain. It cuts no new track. One's fingers 
playing the scale of G for the one hundredth time 
1 J. B. Esenwein, Writing the Short-story, pp. 45-6. 



46 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

move up the keyboard without the conscious direc- 
tion of the mind. If, however, one plays the scale 
of D major for the first time in contrary motion, one 
thinks. If a story is to make an impression, it must 
be new and striking; it must stimulate thought. 

Because a theme is important and because its 
development must stimulate thought, there is no 
reason that it should stir up dispute. Argumenta- 
tion has no part in a story. It may convince the 
reason; of itself it will never convince the feeling. 
Furthermore, as Mr. Pitkin says: "Do not attempt 
to interpret any matter which society finds problem- 
atic to-day. If the human race has not yet found a 
clear answer to a question of social consequence, 
it is because the question is entangled and dark, or, 
at least, two-sided. And whatever is so cannot be 
presented in such a manner as to produce that single 
effect which is the inalienable charm and right of the 
Short-story." x One might relate a dramatic war 
incident; one should hesitate, however, to attempt 
to prove in a Short-story that war should be elimi- 
nated. One might tell of the appearance of a mouse 
on the platform during a woman-suffrage meeting; 
one should not try to show that woman-suffrage is a 
good or an evil. One may approach so close that 
the problem will be raised in the mind of the reader, 
but one should not enter into the problem itself. 

It is but little less dangerous to try to use a trite 
or disputed theme than it is to try to write about 
something concerning which one knows nothing. 

1 Pitkin, Short-story Writing, p. 58. 



THE GERMINAL IDEA 47 

A girl could rarely wr\te a successful story of politics, 
for usually she lacks intimate knowledge. A person 
who had spent his whole life in Nebraska would 
rarely write a successful story of an ocean voyage. 
Unless he had read widely, and perhaps even if he 
had, he would be almost sure to make absurd blun- 
ders which would betray his inexperience. No more 
ought an Ohioan without experience in the moun- 
tains to try to write a story of the Rockies or of 
Alaska. An easterner generally makes his wild 
west a great deal too wild. If one wishes to write 
a story whose plot is laid on the Sahara Desert or in 
Constantinople, he needs to be pretty sure that he 
knows his region before he begins. College students 
are living in a unique environment, yet ordinarily, 
instead of accepting the material at hand and writing 
of the complications of college life, they prefer to 
stretch their imaginations across states, if not 
across the length and breadth of a continent, for the 
sake of novelty. Kipling wrote of India, Bret Harte, 
of California, and we all wish to go and do likewise. 
Kipling, however, knew his India through intimate 
experience. Bret Harte knew his California. Therein 
is a difference. If one must write of the unfamiliar, 
one should read, study his chosen environment until 
he can live there imaginatively as easily as he can in 
flesh and blood at home. Then he should make the 
environment as colorless as possible. He may thus 
avoid glaring mistakes. The same principle applies 
to stories written with an historical background. 
They must be handled carefully, if at all. After all, 



48 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

it is easier to write of one's own country, one's own 
surroundings, and one's own time. 

The reader, however, enjoys novelty — of all sorts; 
novelty of treatment, novelty of character, novelty 
of incident, novelty of setting. It is true, of course, 
that underneath all this strangeness he does wish to 
behold the sameness of human nature at its root. 
It is certain that he likes to be able to say at times, 
"I might have done that," or "I once had an ex- 
perience something like that." He likes to see his 
own motives and manners mirrored, just as he boosts 
his pride a little whenever the name of his forsaken 
hamlet is mentioned in a city paper. Yet familiarity 
may at length grow tiresome. We are all interested 
in what other people are like, what they are doing, 
what strange adventures they have had. We like to 
know what other people have done that we have 
never succeeded in doing, and, at times, we like, as 
did the Pharisee, to congratulate ourselves that we 
"are not as other men." Thus the story depicting 
the life and manners of men and women the like of 
which we have never known, has a perennial interest. 
Kipling has said : "Tell them first of those things that 
thou hast seen and they have seen together. Thus 
their knowledge will piece out thy imperfections. Tell 
them of what thou alone hast seen, then what thou 
hast heard, and since they be children, tell them of 
battles and kings, horses, devils, elephants, and angels, 
but omit not to tell them of love and such like." 1 

1 Kipling, Preface to Life's Handicap. Quoted by J. B. 
Esenwein, Studying the Short-story, p. 148. 



THE GERMINAL IDEA 49 

After one has found a story which is not trivial, 
not hackneyed, not polemic, but is of genuine in- 
terest, one has yet to settle upon one's purpose. 
To have a purpose in writing a story is not the same 
as to point a moral. Only when theme and purpose 
merge so that the one is merely the expression of the 
other is the resulting story really didactic. For 
instance, in the story referred to at the opening oL 
this chapter, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, if Bret Harte 
had taken as his purpose to show that the acceptance 
of chance as a controlling motive is sure to bring 
disastrous results, he would have made theme and 
purpose identical; his story would have been didac- 
tic. Fortunately, however, he did not do this. His 
theme and purpose are distinct, and a just balance/ 
is kept between them. A story may, indeed, allow 
several purposes, and as the purpose varies, so also 
will the story. Does one care simply to give a 
humorous presentation of life? Does the story lend 
itself to such treatment? Does one wish to show a 
contrast or to portray vividly the characteristics of 
one locality or business? Or, does one have a more 
serious purpose, to show the nobility of human 
nature or the baseness to which sin may lead? Of 
course, purpose may be determined absolutely by 
the nature of the story itself. If so, the writer 
might as well accept it, or hunt for a new story-idea. 

At this early stage, too, it is wise to determine, at 
least in a general way, upon the single impression 
that is to be left upon the reader, and upon the pre- 
vailing tone of the story: whether it be of gloom, ex- 



50 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

pectancy, joy; of wildness or calm; of genial warmth 
and friendliness; of bleakness and misfortune; per- 
haps of miserliness. In choosing a single impression 
or tone, it will be necessary to take into account its 
acceptability to the reader and its adaptability to 
the theme. In the matter of acceptability, one must 
depend on one's good sense and general observation. 
Nowadays, however, joy is generally preferred to 
horror, and warmth of tone to coldness. By the 
control of adaptability is meant that the writer 
must always be guided by his story. He cannot 
work free-handed, for the single impression is always 
determined by and determines the climax. 



♦Ill 

PLOT 

A story may be exceedingly interesting, yet, 
unless it has plot, it will never be a Short-story. 
Occasionally, one sees a garden where overgrown 
rose-bushes, rhubarb plants, hollyhocks, hop-vines, 
and tiger-lilies run riot over one another. There 
is no order, no grouping, no massing. Each plant 
looks as if it had been ignominiously pitched from 
the doorstep and had taken root where it fell. Not 
even has the principle of the survival of the fittest 
availed to bring order out of chaos, for all plants 
seem equally fit. The effect of such planting is 
unsatisfying and bizarre. One longs for pruning- 
shears and a spade. The same plants arranged 
without a semblance of artificiality, in an orderly 
manner, might be of real, ornamental value. No 
more does one admire a house the number of whose 
owners can be estimated by the number of additions 
tacked on, one behind the other. One admires 
rather a house built with unity according to a har- 
monized plan. The Short-story plot, though differ- 
ent from that of the larger narrative forms, is none 
the less real and vital. It requires a careful selection 
and rearrangement of materials for a definite pattern. 
It is also a working out of the laws of cause and 



52 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

effect. It is not a haphazard pitching together of 
incident and character until a fitting momentous 
event is found with which to finish off a story. It 
is not something accidental, but something thought 
out and prepared for. In it there is represented, 
not a succession of events, but a series where the 
relation of each incident to that which immediately 
precedes or to that which directly follows is clear 
and necessary. No loose ends are allowed; for in 
plot the weaving is compact and sure. Each event 
comes in order, because it grows logically out of a 
preceding event. Each part bears a distinct rela- 
tion to the whole and has a definite work. Plot is 
somewhat like a system of cogs: each part so works 
into the next part that it is actually necessary to 
the movement of that part. The value of the whole 
will be lost unless the parts are consistent and 
adapted throughout. A plot is artistic just as a 
washing-machine or a demonstration of a geometrical 
proposition is artistic. Neither is of itself burdened 
with ornament, but each is artistic in so far as it is 
adapted for the most complete service. For plot, 
this service is to attain through climax a single 
narrative effect. Although but an unfilled outline, 
it is essentially complete in itself — a garden laid 
out ready to receive its roses and hollyhocks in their 
places. 

For this reason, true stories rarely make of them- 
selves perfect plots. They must be transformed by 
imagination and reason. A true story is told ordi- 
narily because it is in some sense extraordinary. 



, 



PLOT 53 



One passes it over without comment, unless it is 
striking and unusual. Now a true story may be 
fruitful as a source of plot, yet in its first form its 
parts are rarely consistent. The law of cause and 
effect is, of course, working just as truly in the 
sphere of the actual as it is in the realm of the 
imagined; yet, in the actual, causes are frequently 
hidden under the mass of details and irrelevant 
matter. In the imagined they have been bared, 
and events stand out in their true relationships. 
A true story might suppose a thoroughly upright 
man suddenly become an embezzler. When one 
applies reason to this true-story idea, one can read- 
ily see its absurdity. A thoroughly upright man 
could not be an embezzler. Either he must have 
been all the time but feignedly upright, or some 
sudden change has occurred in his character. When 
one has adopted one or the other of these two sup- 
positions, one can then develop a reasonable story 
— ideally true, although not in apparent accord 
with the facts as reported. Imagination fills in 
what fact has passed over; it supplies the hidden 
motives and makes in the end a complete and 
consistent story. The true story but startles and 
leaves one with a feeling of its incompleteness. 
It is often said that fact may be stranger than 
fiction. Its strangeness may be its peril, not its 
hope. Fact may display no logical relation of parts ; 
fiction always does. To be sure, plot works with 
imaginative material, but it requires that this 
material be shaped toward a predetermined end 



54 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

by the application of reason; for the parts of the 
story must be always "logical, adequate and har- 
monious." 

This plot, in the Short-story, is nevertheless 
simple and may be exceedingly slight. The Short- 
story deals with a simplification of life; hence, 
complexity is foreign to its nature. Brevity and 
unity of impression both seem practically impossible 
to the complex plot. Yet one rather naturally 
associates complexity with any idea of plot what- 
soever; one thinks it essential. A thousand threads 
are inextricably woven into the pattern of life. 
Thus, in imitation, the makers of the novel and 
the drama have used various threads; they have 
bound together in one climax several groups of 
characters, several conflicting actions. Yet the 
narrower, more restricted plot of the Short-story 
is still a design and involves an entanglement of 
threads. A trolling line may become so tied up in 
itself that an hour must be spent in its disentangle- 
ment. So it is, also, in the field of narrative. A 
simple group of characters, comprising with inci- 
dent but a single action, may be knotted together 
in climax; each part itself acts as a thread. The 
result is a plot not at all inferior to that of the larger 
forms. Simplicity, instead of becoming a weakness, 
has become, indeed, the strength of the Short- 
story plot. Where many threads are entangled, 
one's mind becomes distracted. Impressions flicker 
for a moment and are gone. One starts along one 
path, and, behold, one finds oneself hurrying along 



PLOT 55 

another. In the Short-story, however, there can 
be no hesitation, no turning aside into new byways. 
The effect is single and more powerful than that of 
the complex plot. A tree with a long tap-root goes 
deep into the soil, and gains greater power than 
does a tree whose roots branch and rebranch near 
the surface. A plot concentrated on one action is 
sure to strike deep into one's mind. 

Yet, one says, the simple plot is, at least, less 
natural than the broad plot, for it works with events 
in isolation. One must remember, however, that 
the novelist sits down and thinks out the ramifica- 
tions of life, arranges innumerable complications in 
the quiet of his study, disposes his characters in 
arbitrary ways. A man's life is, of course, filled 
with these complications; but, after all, a man 
usually settles only one question at a time. He 
does things with a single motive without taking 
into consideration how his action is going to affect 
his own life and other lives, perhaps years after. 
He may not live for the present moment, but he 
certainly lives in the present moment. He is a 
little like gunpowder: he goes off of a sudden — 
at a single thwack of a hammer. The Short-story 
writer takes for granted that incidents and episodes 
connected, to be sure, yet each separate, make up 
the chain of man's existence. The attitudes of 
the two plot-builders are essentially different. 
Each attitude is correct in its own way. The one 
regards man as a creature caught hand and foot 
in the meshes of society; the other sees him as an 



56 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

individual working out through quick motive and 
act his own destiny and that of society in general. 
Both views are equally true; but the latter seems 
indeed the more lifelike, for it represents a man's 
life in stages each with its own climax. 

The essential of good plot is climax; the materials 
are character and action. It is the business of 
plot to find how these two elements can be most 
effectively played against each other for climax. 
The strength of neither can be measured by itself, 
for it is estimated by its moving force, its power in 
conflict. Character is uncertain until it has met 
an obstacle. Action is uninteresting except as it 
comes into relation with men and women. A hurri- 
cane in an uninhabited part of the earth does not 
intimately concern us where we dwell. It is mere 
waste force. In the Short-story, however, there 
must be no waste force. Character and action 
react against each other, and the result is climax. 
In the progress of the story the relationship of 
character and action is changed. Something must 
happen to the characters, and characters must do 
something to further or check the action. There 
must be an interweaving of materials, else there 
can be no design, no plot. "In other words, every 
story whose excellence is generally admitted is 
more than a picture of character, more than a good 
complication, more than a fragment of biography, 
and more than an exciting episode. // is all these 
together, and in it they are so arranged that the 
reader is surprised by what happens to the hero, 



PLOT 57 

and thrilled by what the hero does to each situation. 
This thrill is the thrill of drama, only if the hero 
somehow exhibits his human nature by conduct in 
a crisis" x 

Since the focus of a story is the climax, the con- 
struction of a plot should always begin there. If 
one centers one's attention on the climax, one can 
be sure that the intermediate parts of the design 
will be logical. If one starts at the other end, one 
cannot be so sure; for it is easier to trace an effect 
to its cause than it is to trace a cause to its effect. 
One should begin the work of construction, then, with 
climax. Now, the climax is very near to the end 
in the Short-story. It is the point of highest sus- 
pense to which everything has been leading. Its 
effect would be lost, if it were to be followed by 
extended conclusions. In the drama, however, 
the climax is at the middle of the story. It is the 
point of contact of all the several single actions. 
From it, there is a gradual untying towards a reso- 
lution at the end. In the Short-story, the climax 
and the resolution are practically simultaneous. 
There is no need of any extended untying, for the 
complication is within a single action. The com- 
plication is not of itself of sufficient importance to 
be interesting. Interest is all directed towards that 
which happens as a result of complication. This 
point of highest interest, this happening, this out- 
come, is the climax of the Short-story. 

"But what is the climax? Sometimes, the incident 
1 Pitkin, Short-story Writing, p. 28. 



58 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

towards which all the episodes led, which collected, 
like a brass globe, all the electric charge of emotion, 
thought, or vivid impression to be drawn from the 
story. Sometimes, and much oftenest, the situa- 
tion, which had been the root and first perception of 
the tale, and now, in this climax, was most sharply 
revealed. But among those Short-stories which 
differ most thoroughly from ordinary short narra- 
tive, or from the novel with its different view-point, 
a single impression, a vivid realization for the 
reader of that which moved the author to write, 
be it incident, be it emotion, be it situation, this 
is the conscious purpose of the story, and this is the 
climax." 1 Yet every climax, be it a single impres- 
sion or a vivid realization, must have its outward 
expression. In They, the climax is reached when 
the spirit-child drops a kiss in the center of the 
man's outstretched palm. It seems, indeed, an in- 
significant action, yet is a part of the subtle atmos- 
phere which shapes the story. The real climax is, 
however, not the act of the child, but the sudden 
realization of loss which comes to the blind woman. 
All in a moment, she realizes that this man is ac- 
corded a privilege which she with all her love for 
children can never have, — for she has "neither 
borne nor lost." Thus is the climax stamped upon 
the main character. It is no less moving for the 
accessory character. Up to this time he moved 
through an atmosphere full of sunshine, flitting 
shadows, and faint echoes; he has been en wrapped 
1 H. S. Canby, The Short-story in English, p. 303. 



PLOT 59 

in the loveliness of mystery. Now, in a moment 
of anguish, his eyes are undimmed; the truth 
flashes across his mind and he understands. The 
act of the spirit-child marked indeed the climax, 
but the climax was happening in the hearts of the 
characters. Again, the climax may be a simple 
remark which constitutes a revelation or a revenge. 
In Maupassant's The Necklace, it is a single remark, 
"Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at 
most only five hundred francs." It is the last 
crushing blow to Madame Loisel. Although a 
climax may be expressed in almost any way, it is 
always in harmony with the nature of the story. 
The climax of a character story will show this 
character in some sort of crisis. It may be an 
incident showing a positive change in condition or 
circumstances, it may be a decision, even a thought. 
If action predominates, the climax will be some 
incident; if setting, then this will rise to its height 
in climax. In short, climax and single impression 
must be in absolute harmony. 

The climax must be prepared for by a complica- 
tion — some obstacle to the uninterrupted progress 
of the story must present itself. Yet an obstacle 
is not enough to cause climax. Suppose that one 
were driving in the country and expected to reach 
certain picnic grounds at a certain time, and sup- 
pose that just before the end, one should be con- 
fronted by a fence. This fence would be an obstacle 
to one's further progress. One might turn back 
and retrace the course; but then, one would fail 



60 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

to reach the picnic grounds. Nothing would have 
been gained. Suppose, now, that a gate should 
be noticed in the fence at this point. One needs 
now only to stop long enough to fling it open before 
one continues the journey. The fence, in such a 
case, is no real obstacle at all; it does not actually 
offer resistance to further progress; it merely delays 
progress. Now, suppose one had the chance neither 
of turning back nor of passing through the gate. 
The obstacle becomes at once real. Ordinary modes 
of procedure will avail not at all. Something extraor- 
dinary must happen. One will have to break the 
fence and incur the wrath of the owner. In the 
Short-story, circumstances are much the same: 
there must be an obstacle, an unavoidable obstacle; 
for there can be no turning back from a difficulty 
in the path. The difficulty is a necessary part 
of the story. Progression, too, rapid progression 
toward an end, is necessary. One must always 
move straight ahead in the direction of the climax. 
Nor can one be satisfied by finding an obstacle 
which can be easily set aside. Such an obstacle 
would create an anti-climax. The end would be 
so easy of attainment that it would fail to arouse 
interest. There would be no element of real sus- 
pense, and without suspense there can be no Short- 
story. 

If the obstacle is real and unavoidable, it will 
cause a conflict of some kind. This is perfectly 
evident. If two motor-cycles going in opposite 
directions should, in rounding a corner, run straight 



PLOT 61 

into each other, each might be called an obstacle 
for the other. Something would be sure to 
happen. One of the motor-cycles might escape 
slightly impaired, or be utterly smashed. Both 
might be destroyed and their riders left un- 
ceremoniously sprawling in a cornfield. Here is 
conflict resulting in some definite action. In the 
Short-story, however, when two forces conflict, 
one does not ordinarily expect complete annihila- 
tion of both. It is not certain, however, that the 
obstacle will always be crushed and the story move 
on straight thereafter. Sometimes the obstacle is 
the victor and the story must move on impaired 
to its conclusion. In this case climax and con- 
flict coincide. It is always to be borne in mind 
that obstacle is not the conflict, but the cause of 
conflict. This obstacle may be a character, — 
since action may result from character as well as 
from incident. Anything that for the moment gets 
in the way of the free course of the story is an 
obstacle and gives rise to a conflict. 

The next requirement is that one construct cir- 
cumstances which will lead up to complication and 
climax effectively. Everything .JjLJjifi. Short-story 
plot miis^Jmyemovement. Here is no chance to 
gather flowers by the wayside. Rapidity, direct- 
ness, governs everything that_-enters into plot. 
The circumstances, tfterefore, must be such that 
the complication will be the natural, the logical 
result. Many details which will further the effect 
may be worked in harmoniously in the later struc- 



62 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

ture; but in the plot, one is eager to trace only the 
workings of cause and effect that lead not to the 
emotional impression, but to the technical, mechani- 
cal climax. Thus, in a few rapid sketch strokes, 
one must set forth definitely that which leads to 
the complication. In building a story, it is im- 
portant here to be sure that the circumstances are 
strong enough actually to justify the complication. 
Of course, the circumstances may of themselves 
have several stages. There may be some charac- 
ter trait either in the main character or in the sub- 
ordinate which may give rise to an event from which 
in turn the circumstances evolve. The event giv- 
ing rise to the circumstances might be but a single 
word, an apparently unimportant decision, yet 
generally it points backward to some significant 
characteristic. 

Perhaps the first question after one has deter- 
mined the climax is in regard to the characters of 
the story. There will have to be a main character. 
Will a man or a woman be more appropriate to the 
action? What sort of person shall he be, what his 
general nature, what his usual business? From 
what social class shall he be drawn? Approximately, 
what should be his age? Shall he be simply a color- 
less figure in the action, or shall he be shown as 
an individual with peculiar characteristics? Such 
questions are sure to occur immediately to the 
Short-story writer. To answer them, one examines 
the climax, and, as before, the theme and purpose. 
With these aids and common-sense, one should 



PLOT 63 

have little trouble in determining on a principal 
character. This chief actor may be even an animal 
or a thing. .007, in Kipling's story of this name, is 
a powerful locomotive. While retaining the charac- 
teristics of a thing, it is, however, endowed with a 
sort of personality. Where animals or things be- 
come main characters, they are always personified 
and given human motives; they are moved by 
selfishness, pride, or ambition, just as are men and 
women. In a character story, the traits of the chief 
personage may actually further the movement. In 
such a case, one needs to determine carefully the 
nature and habits of the main character. It is 
essential that the characters should be true to the 
action, and in every respect consistent with their 
assigned parts. Setting may carry with it certain 
associations, and so may characters. However 
easy^it may be to imagine a cook brandishing a 
carving knife, one would scarcely expect to see a 
seamstress gripping a revolver. Seamstresses might 
do for "hard luck" stories or for love stories, but 
they would surely be ugly ducklings in a sea-faring 
story. Characters must be, above all, appropriate 
to the action; they must be chosen because they 
are the characters best adapted for the purposes of 
the story. 

Somehow, too, every character, to be individual, 
must be unique. Mere conformity to a type will 
not suffice. To be sure, one wishes to see a type 
represented, but yet more, to see an individual. 
Mere conformity will not mark out a person from 



64 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

a crowd. A thief might steal apples, but the fact 
that he had stolen apples does not in itself distin- 
guish this thief from a thousand others who may 
have done the same thing. Show the sly method 
this thief had of stealing the apples, and you have 
revealed all his innate trickiness; you have repre- 
sented an individual. A main character must do 
something uniquely expressive of his own person- 
ality, else we shall never believe in him as an actual 
individual. If a character is only consistent in his 
action, then one cannot be sure of him. He has 
not been thoroughly tested. After he has been 
tested, then one knows thoroughly well what he is 
and what he will do. Naturally, then, the plot- 
builder will have no superficial acquaintance with 
his characters. He must know them through and 
through, must have an instinctive feeling for what 
they would or would not do, in order to make them 
appear not merely consistent, but unique. 

Rarely will one character suffice for a story. 
Utter soliloquies are rare and unnatural. Men 
do not struggle often to themselves. There are 
always spectators, sympathizers, opponents, or 
fellow-combatants. These, too, have their share in 
making a story possible; few of them will be nec- 
essary to the plot movement itself. An accessory 
character may even be the obstacle. Certain effects 
or conditions of character are often best exhibited 
in contrast with certain other characters. If a 
character is played against another of the same 
general type, he will show to best advantage his 



PLOT 65 

own individuality, his strength, and his weakness. 
Then, again, it may be well to contrast altogether 
different types. Sometimes an additional char- 
acter is necessary in order that a story may be more 
effectually linked to time and circumstances. Not all 
accessory characters, however, will ordinarily appear 
in the bald plot statement; some appear properly 
only in the fully developed plot — the structure. 

In the plot statement, also, there may or may not 
be expressed the environment. No matter what 
the story, it must happen somewhere, and it must 
have some definite time setting. Of course, some 
stories might happen anywhere. Rather frequently, 
however, the environment has developed characters 
of a certain special type, and the things that the 
characters do, or the things that are done to them, 
could happen only in this one environment. One 
of the first matters, then, to be determined about 
a Short-story is just this: Does the environment 
really affect the plot movement? If so, one must 
settle immediately time and place. In the Short- 
story, time has no definite limits. Usually the 
time is not more than a day or two. It may be a 
few minutes or an hour. Sometimes, it extends over 
practically a whole life. 1 One can watch a certain 
condition of mind growing throughout a whole life, 
to find its climax of intensity or change only at 

1 Two examples are Edward Everett Hale's The Man With- 
out A Country and August Strindberg's The Stone Man. The 
latter is now available in Velma Swanston Howard's authorized 
translation, Library Edition, issued by Stewart and Kidd Co., 
Cincinnati, Ohio. 



66 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

the last. Only one thread of cause and effect is 
traced, and the narrative for all its passage of time 
is but a Short-story. The same principle holds 
true with reference to place. One part of a story 
might happen in New Orleans, another part in the 
Canadian woods. Unity of time and place are 
not essential to a Short-story. The essential is 
that the environment be natural and appropriate. 
It must fit into its place in the plot machinery. 

Several illustrations may, perhaps, assist in 
showing just what constitutes a good plot. Of 
Thomas Bailey Aldrich's whimsical story, Marjorie 
Daw, the plot is as follows: Wishing to relieve for 
his friend the tedium of a temporary disablement, 
a young man writes him suggestively of a girl, — 
wholly imaginary, — across the street, and is dumb- 
founded by the result, — a case of passionate love 
for the unseen charmer and the sudden coming of 
the convalescent to see and win her. The plot is 
simple, it is slight. The main character is evidently 
the disabled friend. The second character is really 
a part of the machinery of plot. The story could 
not move without him, yet he is a comparatively 
colorless individual. He must be displayed with 
just enough character to be capable of carrying on 
a ruse such as this is. What of Marjorie Daw, 
after whom the story is named? She is not a char- 
acter at all, — but merely a tool. She does nothing, 
nothing is done to her. She is purely a creation 
of the mind, a charming dummy. She is the com- 
plication, the obstacle of the plot. In the com- 



PLOT 67 

pleted story, other characters appear, but for the 
plot only two are necessary. Where, in this story, 
is the climax? Is it the final discovery of the lover 
that he has been hoaxed, or is it his determination 
to come to the lovely Marjorie Daw? If the climax 
is the final exemplification of the theme, and if the 
theme is, as has been suggested, "the power of 
ideals," then the man's decision to hasten to her is 
surely the climax. Suspense really reaches the 
highest point at this moment, not later; for one's 
interest has been centered throughout on the ques- 
tion whether or not a real love-affair is going to 
spring up. That question must be settled before 
one can consider the other, — whether or not he 
will win her. It is noteworthy that with the end 
of suspense there is no end of interest. Interest 
does not decline till the last word of the denoue- 
ment is said, till one has felt the fulness of the final 
surprise which this plot is bound to bring with it. 
Tension may be relieved without any letting go of 
interest. The climax here has merely relieved the 
tension. The circumstances leading to the com- 
plication are the letters which must be written 
continuously, — letters which must interest the re- 
cipient. The cause of the circumstances which 
lead to the complication appears, likewise, in this 
plot. The friend is disabled. Environment is not 
necessary to the plot. This incident might happen 
anywhere. To be sure, it is given an environment, 
but this does not appear in the simple plot state- 
ment; for it is not essential to movement. 



68 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

The simple plot of The Revolt of Mother is : A wife 
deliberately moves into a large new barn built by 
her self-willed, thoughtless, and stern husband on 
a spot long cherished for a promised new house. 
The main character, the wife, is plainly indicated. 
Nothing is said of her, except that she has long 
cherished the promise of a new house and that she 
moves into the barn deliberately. Her husband, 
an accessory character, is more carefully charac- 
terized. Evidently this story is to reveal character 
in conflict. A strong will is going to be pitted 
against another strong will. The climax is the 
moving. The complication, the cause of bringing 
the two characters into conflict, is the building of 
a new barn. The circumstances which lead to the 
complication are to be found in the character of 
the husband, his sternness and thoughtlessness of 
his promise of a new house. Here, circumstances 
amount almost to a negative motive. 

Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King is very 
different from either of the two preceding stories. 
Having persuaded the natives of Kafiristan to regard 
them as gods suddenly come into the country, 
two crown-ambitious men remain as kings until one 
of them, seeking greater security of power for him- 
self, by his wishing to take from among the people 
a wife, reveals that he and his friend are but men, 
and brings death upon himself and disgraceful 
expulsion upon his companion. This plot is more 
complex than any yet examined. The climax is 
the revelation to the natives that the two men are 



PLOT 69 

not gods. From that moment they cease even to 
be kings. What follows is only their punishment. 
The complication is the desire of the leader to take 
a wife. The circumstances leading to the compli- 
cation are found again in the nature of the central 
character. He becomes increasingly ambitious and 
wishes to rule as a permanent monarch. It is plain 
at once that the story demands several characters. 
The natives of Kafiristan appear as a background. 
The central character is the king who through lack 
of prudence causes the complete fall of himself 
and of his friend. From the plot, very little is known 
of him except that he is in the beginning crown- 
ambitious, and, as time goes on, becomes yet more 
so. The companion is, likewise, crown-ambitious, 
but he is content with less power than the other 
has. Evidently, he is a secondary character used 
as some sort of background for the first. The 
main character stands out the more clearly as leader 
in presence of a second less powerful. This second 
character, too, is narrator. He is more. Kipling 
has aimed to show how in India, that land of con- 
trasts, one may irfdeed be "Brother to a prince 
and fellow to a beggar, if he be found worthy." 
The second character fulfils the first in the writer's 
purpose for the story. The picture of the king is 
not complete without the picture of the beggar, 
also, as an interpretative complement. There is 
a famous painting by Paris Bordone in which amid 
the regal splendor of the Ducal Palace, a fisherman, 
half-clad and trembling, is presenting to the Doge, 



70 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

St. Mark's ring, the pledge of promised reward. 
Such is the main picture, but in the lower right- 
hand corner at the foot of the steps that lead upward 
to the Ducal throne there sits the barefoot, fisher- 
man's lad, a boy of the people, gazing with "wide- 
eyed curiosity" at the glitter and pomp before him. 
The lad fulfils the picture. It is true that he is 
needed in the painting for a technical purpose, 
— simply to fill in a portion of the canvas where 
a side-view of the steps would otherwise leave, in 
the foreground, a broad space unoccupied. Yet 
the lad has a further purpose; he acts as an inter- 
pretative complement. Just so is the lesser char- 
acter needed in The Man Who Would Be King, — 
as a narrator, but also as a complement. 

An indefinite continuance of the process of plot 
examination would confirm, not change this view of 
essentials of plot. In it one finds the main charac- 
ters with more or less hint as to their general nature 
and motives, the circumstances leading to the com- 
plication, this complication, and climax. Sometimes 
the climax and denouement are separate; sometimes 
they coincide. Sometimes the circumstances leading 
to the complication are to be found in the nature of 
the character. Usually, the plot statement contains, 
beside the main character, one or two accessory 
characters. To study plot a little more thoroughly, 
however, let us analyze in more detail another story- 
plan, — that of The Outcasts of Poker Flat: Four 
disreputable characters, exiled from town, start to 
cross a mountain range; but, halting for rest, are 



PLOT 71 

overtaken by a snow-storm and perish. The theme, 
as has been stated, is the acceptance of chance as 
a controlling motive; the purpose is to show the 
essential soundness of heart that can coexist with 
outward conventional badness. Bearing this in 
mind, let us try to follow Bret Harte's steps in 
the construction of his plot. There is a clear reason 
for every movement. The climax is evidently the 
death of the outcasts. It could be nothing else, if 
climax represents the final outworking of the theme; 
for risk of life is the greatest chance that can be 
taken, and death is the extreme to which acceptance 
of chance might lead one. One asks, however, 
whether it would not have been just as satisfactory 
if death had been merely faced, not met. Is there a 
reason that death should at length conquer? Merely 
facing an event, however fearful, is not actually 
experiencing it. There must be a complete yielding 
to make the acceptance sure and perfect. So much 
for the climax and the theme. The climax is, how- 
ever, also in perfect harmony with the purpose. If 
anything will avail to bring out the spark of good in 
character, the imminence of death will do it. 

Four characters are mentioned in the plot state- 
ment. It seems as if one main character ought to 
suffice. Yet here, no one main character is definitely 
marked out. All four were evidently regarded by 
Bret Harte as essential to the plot. A person who 
would accept chance as a controlling motive would 
have to be of a cool, calculating nature. Although 
it is not at all impossible that a woman should have 



72 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

such a disposition, yet it is improbable. A man 
would be much more appropriate to this story. Pic- 
ture a man of a cool, calculating disposition. Almost 
instinctively you bring him into comparison with 
his opposite — some one who lacks his qualities, who 
does not measure carefully every act to see just how 
it may result. Bret Harte made this uncalculating 
person a woman. Man and woman, representing 
the calculating and the uncalculating types, are here 
contrasted. To make the central character stand 
forth unique, however, he must be shown beside his 
own kind. He must show himself somehow superior 
to those with whom he associates, not simply in his 
skill and foresight, but in his essential nature; hence 
another man is introduced, one who is also of a cal- 
culating nature. Three characters are thus accounted 
for, one central, two as accessories for contrast. The 
picturing of the central character would demand no 
more. Yet the theme demands still another. In 
order that the acceptance of chance as a controlling 
motive may be fully displayed, not only must the 
calculating and uncalculating be shown, but in the 
acceptance of chance, man must be contrasted with 
woman, man must be contrasted with man, and 
woman must be contrasted with woman. Two 
men and two women, therefore, appear in the simple 
plot statement. 

These characters are all taken from one class — 
outcasts. The plot calls them disreputable char- 
acters exiled from town. It is necessary that they 
should be such, for the purpose of the story is to 



PLOT 73 

show the latent good hidden deep in evil. The 
characters must be bad; that is taken for granted. 
The lower down in the social scale, therefore, these 
characters are placed, the more surprising and hope- 
ful is the discovery of any lingering spark of good. 
Since outcasts are at the extreme foot of the social 
scale, they, of all people, are most fittingly used in 
a story of this kind. 

As the complication, preparatory to the climax, 
Bret Harte used a sudden heavy snowfall in the 
mountains. Yet to imprison his characters, thus, 
seems a slow and unsatisfactory way to kill them. 
An avalanche sweeping everything in its path, a 
sudden slip over a precipice, would certainly have 
done the work just as thoroughly. In such case, 
however, the outcasts would not have accepted 
chance at all; they would have been merely over- 
taken by chance. To accept it, they must realize its 
full measure; they must see plainly what is ahead 
of them; they must have time to consider. Death 
must, then, come upon them gradually. Time, too, 
must be allowed for character development. Some- 
thing may in the interval arise to call out the best 
that is in these outcasts. There might be several 
ways of showing them squarely facing death. They 
might be awaiting execution within a limited number 
of days. Such a situation, however, would con- 
tradict the original proposition: these characters 
are outcasts. Society has indeed turned against 
them, but it has contented itself merely by turning 
its back, not by disposing of them utterly. Again, 



74 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

were they awaiting execution, they would be dealing 
with men and law, not with chance. There could 
then be no indefiniteness. Isolation, involving cold 
and starvation, would seem satisfactorily to meet 
every requirement. It will not cause immediate 
death, but it may give ample time for character 
development under favoring conditions. A moun- 
tain was easily chosen as a suitable place for such an 
event to happen. There is further appropriateness, 
also, in severing these men and women from contact 
with society even at the time of their final struggle. 
They are outcasts in life, they should be outcasts in 
death. If they leave one town, they must die before 
they reach the next; for they are really not outcasts 
at all, if after they have been driven from one town, 
they are received by the people of another. So long 
as they are on their way, they continue under the 
social ban. 

The circumstances from which the complication 
springs consist of a simple halting for rest on the 
journey. This action seems almost incidental; no 
one suspects that it will have dire results. Circum- 
stances again can be referred to character. Ordi- 
narily, people would not halt at all, midway across a 
mountain range; and if, perchance, they should halt, 
it would be for a short time, not for a full night. 

Thus, one sees how carefully a plot is constructed. 
There is evident an orderly and logical sequence 
from character and plot circumstances to climax. 
Each part has been accounted for by what immedi- 
ately precedes. Yet one notes how the writer's theme 



PLOT 



75 



and purpose have acted as guide-posts through- 
out the way. Not only did they decide the climax, 
but with the climax they decided every other step. 
Naturally one cannot say that every story that is a 
work of art is constructed in some such toilsome way 
as this. Some plots form themselves hurriedly and 
exactly without much interference from the writer. 
Yet, until one has learned to think out stories logi- 
cally, without toying with the little irrelevancies, 
the fancied elegancies; until one has thoroughly 
grasped the spirit of Short-story form and move- 
ment; one should test every story by some such 
plan as this. 



IV 

STRUCTURE 

Plot marks out the rough lines upon which a 
story is to be built, while structure completes the 
specifications for the building. Upon the workman- 
ship of the one no less than of the other depend the 
beauty and the strength of a story. A single error 
in plotting may make the whole unstable and totter- 
ing; a single flaw in structure may ruin the sym- 
metry and mar the grace of a story. There is an 
art in sketching outlines and another in arranging 
the minute. Structure concerns itself with the 
latter. It involves lJie^.w^r]LoLjd£iails»jQf_weather- 
boarding, of chimneys, of window-frames and doors. 1 
It is used, as a technical term, to denote not the 
finishing, the final eareful-poHs hing o f a-story, but 
rather the minute elaboration~of 4he plot preparatory 
to the actual work of writing. It is the altogether 
necessary, if slightly irksome, process of perfecting 
a design before one can begin to make it appear in 
haunting word and living phrase. Every detail 

1 " [Stevenson] mapped out the plan of a coming novel when- 
ever he resolved starting on one. This was putting up the 
scaffolding, he said; and as soon as the foundation was laid and 
the walls begun, he called attention to the rising structure." 
E. Blantvre Simpson, The Robert Louis Stevenson Originals, p. 
153. 



STRUCTURE 77 

must have a reason for its existence and for its 
position. Each sentence, each incident, each charac- 
ter, each description, each remark, must be chosen 
for its harmony with the single effect and fitted into 
the place where it will count for greatest strength. 1 
Parts must be so joined that the sutures do not 
stand out boldly. The skilful story will seem com- 
plete only when every part is so necessary that, were 
it removed, there would be an evident lack. In the 
structure of the Short-story there belongs the con- 
sideration of effective subsidiary incidents and 
characters, of proportion, of order of events, of 
verisimilitude, of point of view, or as Mr. Pitkin 
more aptly calls "it, of the "angle of narration." 
Beginning and end, although they might appro- 
priately be considered under structure, will on 
account of their importance be treated in a separate 
chapter. 

In his admirable book, The Materials and Methods 
of Fiction, Mr. Clayton Hamilton says: "The aim 
of a Short-story is to produce a single narrative effect 
with the greatest economy of means that is consistent 
with the utmost emphasis." 2 This statement should 
be kept before one constantly as a guide in the study 
of structure. It means that everything which goes 

1 Stevenson bears witness to the value of such careful work- 
manship. "'Belle,' he said, 'I see it all so clearly! The story- 
unfolds itself before me to the least detail — there is nothing 
left in doubt. I never felt so before in anything I ever wrote. 
It [Weir of Hermiston] will be my best work; I feel myself so 
sure in every word!'" The Robert Louis Stevenson Originals, 
p. 182. 2 P. 173. 



78 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

into a Short-story must be rigidly examined to see 
whether it is necessary, whether it adds anything 
to the whole, whether it fits perfectly into the place 
that has been made ready. Perhaps some other 
incident would be more harmonious; would make 
the story more complete. We quote Mr. Hamilton 
again at length: "The phrase 'with the greatest 
economy of means' implies that the writer of a 
Short-story should tell his tale with the fewest 
necessary number of characters and incidents, and 
should project it in the narrowest possible range of 
place and time. If he can get along with two char- 
acters, he should not use three. If a single event 
will suffice for his effect, he should confine himself to 
that. If his story can pass in one place at one time, 
he must not disperse it over several times and places. 
But in striving always for the greatest possible con- 
ciseness, he must not neglect the equally important 
need of producing his effect 'with the utmost em- 
phasis.' If he can gain markedly in emphasis by 
violating the strictest possible economy, he should 
do so; for, as Poe stated, undue brevity is excep- 
tionable, as well as undue length. . . . The greatest 
structural problem of the writer of Short-stories is to 
strike just the proper balance between the effort for 
economy of means — which tends to conciseness — 
and the effort for the utmost emphasis — which 
tends to amplitude of treatment." x 

In every story, there are likely to be some charac- 
ters which are not necessary to the plot movement, 
1 The Materials and Methods of Fiction, pp. 175-6. 



STRUCTURE 79 

but are necessary to structure. These, one calls 
developing characters, for they assist in the growth 
of plot into the complete story. Often they appear 
for contrast as emphasizing foils. If the main 
characters are unusual in some way, the developing 
characters may be commonplace, ordinary, so that 
what is unusual may be made to stand out the more 
distinctly. If the main characters are disreputable, 
their wickedness will be accentuated by contrast with 
the good. Piney and The Innocent are thus intro- 
duced in The Outcasts of Poker Flat. They exist for 
"utmost emphasis." Bret Harte's story is the 
stronger for their presence. Thus it is through all the 
range of possible contrasts. The one character may 
serve as a background for the other, sometimes em- 
phasizing, sometimes merely measuring the other. 
Thus does one view the highest lights and the deepest 
shadows. Yet characters rarely exist for contrast 
alone. The rule of greatest economy of means re- 
quires also that they be woven into the structure in 
other ways. As well as serving for "utmost em- 
phasis" Piney and her lover are the means of supply- 
ing provisions to the outcasts.^ In Henry James' 
The Madonna of the Future, over against the man 
with the noble but never attained ideal is set the 
artist with no soul, whose only look is downward, 
whose only work is to make caricatures of life. At 
the end, the artist with the unattained ideals is still 
the great man. The other is himself hardly more 
than a caricature. The incident in which he flaunts 
his wares is more than a character contrast; it is 



80 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

mood giving. It utters a note of hopelessness, of 
despair. Already one feels that the artist with an 
ideal has failed utterly and completely. His, indeed, 
has been the luxury of cherishing alone an ideal 
without the pain of striving to attain it. It is a 
pessimistic story, as all stories of lost opportunities 
must be, and the man of the caricatures enforces its 
impression of utter barrenness. The more purposes 
a single character can be made to serve and serve 
naturally, the fewer the characters that will be 
necessary, and the stronger the story. Contrasting 
characters can frequently be thus used. 

Sometimes, developing characters are scarcely 
individuals at all; they supply background and give 
atmosphere. As such, they are not carefully drawn: 
some may be merely mentioned; others may be 
distinguished slightly. Extra characters are used 
sometimes merely to carry out details. A narrator 
who is not a participant in the action is sometimes 
needed. It is useless and impossible to enumerate 
all the ways in which accessory characters may 
serve. Each story has its own needs. A character 
may be added for the sake of naturalness. When 
there is something apparently mysterious in the 
story, a person may be used to confirm the strange- 
ness, to make it actual. In They, again, Madden, 
the butler, serves exactly such a purpose. Up to 
the point where he enters there has been no reason 
to suspect that the children are not real children. 
They have seemed excessively shy, they have never 
been named, but neither has the blind woman nor 



STRUCTURE 81 

the man from the other side of the county. Now, 
by questions, the butler shows surprise that the man 
from the other side of the county should have seen 
the children. Had he seen them even before the 
blind woman had spoken to him? Evidently they 
are visible to some and invisible to others. The 
atmosphere of mystery is deepened by being made 
more definite. 

In The Revolt of Mother, there appear several 
minor characters. Chief among these are the 
daughter who sits embroidering and the young son 
who lopes off to school. Both of these characters 
are necessary to the proper development of the story. 
Because she wishes her daughter to have a parlor, 
not a kitchen in which to be married, and because 
Nancy and George Eastman are to stay at the 
Penns' after the marriage, Sarah Penn feels especially 
anxious for the fulfilment of the promise of a new 
house. Without such justification, her revolt would 
have been inexcusable ; it would have revealed a self- 
willed, obstinate, and disloyal wife. That she has 
really been an ever-faithful wife is emphasized, 
however, throughout the story in many little ways. 
How eager she is — even after forty years — to bake 
Adoniram's favorite pies! The boy is of less real 
service. He is needed chiefly to assist in the moving. 
There would have been much impropriety in calling 
in the neighbors to assist. They would have been 
under no obligations to obey the wife, and they would 
never have run the risk of angering the husband. 
This is strictly a family affair. The boy must obey 



82 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

his mother. To him, also, explanations which could 
never be made to neighbors, could be given. The 
minister is another minor personage. He comes to 
talk the matter over. Evidently he wishes to 
convince the wife that she has been undutiful. He 
goes away dismayed. In the story he serves merely 
to show that the wife is resolute, that her purpose 
has not changed. She feels that she has nothing to 
be ashamed of. She is unabashed. But for the 
minister, we should have wondered just a little 
whether the wife would be steadfast in her purpose 
and hold her ground on the arrival of her husband. 
The other personages are scarcely more than men- 
tioned: the hired man, the haymakers, the men and 
women of the community. They represent nothing 
in the story, except a background of farm toil and 
neighborhood gossip. A story is constructed ra- 
tionally, and the developing characters are simply 
the outgrowth of its needs. 

Characters, however, always appear in relation to 
incident. It is, therefore, to this element of structure 
that attention must now be turned. It is a rule of 
the Short-story that every part must in some way 
further the progress toward a predetermined end. 
Incidents must supply movement and life; they 
must add the details which make a story rounded 
and complete. Upon their skilful choice and 
arrangement, much of the effectiveness of a story 
depends. Incidents serve in three ways: to illus- 
trate, to forward movement, and to give emotional 
stimulus. No story is likely to limit their use to a 



STRUCTURE 83 

single way. Action and emotion must appear 
together in every story; hence incidents of move- 
ment and incidents of emotion will be found side by 
side or in combination. 

Illustrative incidents are more rarely found; they 
are not fundamentally necessary. Incidents of 
movement are, of course, of the very life of a story. 
Such are the plot incidents; such the subsidiary 
incidents that further the progress of action. By 
arranging emotional incidents so that they come 
between important incidents of movement, one 
may produce the effect of minor crises and keep 
the story from suffering from a dull monotony of 
relentless progression. It might be supposed that 
crises would quicken interest, then cause it to lag; 
that they would not only break monotony but 
also slacken suspense; that, consequently, a story 
would consist of a succession of jolts and would 
have no final singleness of impression. To one 
climbing a hill, the full glory of vision is revealed 
only at the end of the ascent. Yet all along the 
way there are partial revelations, which indicate 
one's progress and grow in beauty as one rises. So 
it is in the Short-story; each new crisis enlarges 
the view, but the climax fulfils them all at the last. 
There is ever an upward gradation, and the crises 
but mark the lookout points along the way, each 
point higher than the one preceding. Between 
crises there need be no weakening of interest and 
suspense, for one need not descend into the valley 
before reaching each higher position. Thus, in 



84 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

The Outcasts of Poker Flat, the first crisis is the 
declaration of the Duchess that she will go no far- 
ther, and the consequent halting. The next crisis 
is The Innocent's offer of his mule-load of pro- 
visions. The third is the discovery of snow; the 
fourth, Uncle Billy's theft of the mules; the fifth, Mr. 
Oakhurst's departure from camp. Here is a cres- 
cendo of interest. All the way there has been a 
gradual winding up of suspense toward the climax 
which is yet to come. Mrs. Knollys shows excel- 
lently the same structure. The first crisis is Charles 
Knollys' fall into the crevasse: the second, the 
German scientist's announcement that the body 
cannot be recovered: the third is the letter telling 
of the possibility of finding the body after forty- 
five years. The climax is, of course, the actual 
recovery of the body after the long years of wait- 
ing. Between crises there is not the lagging of 
interest that one might expect in this sort of story. 
Each time, one waits to hear how Mrs. Knollys is 
going to bear the new announcement. Thus, there 
is also a natural emotional progression between 
crises, and the story moves directly toward the 
end without check or jar. 

The second type — the illustrative incident — 
likewise appeals to the intellect. Illustrations, in 
expository writing, illuminate. So do illustrative 
incidents in narrative. Sometimes they give merely 
a clearer insight into some fact of the story; they 
make it vivid by making it concrete. Frequently, 
a character is thus explained. When in Markheim, 



STRUCTURE 85 

"the notes of a piano were wakened to the music 
of a hymn," the murderer drifts into a revery that 
shows how great has been his fall from an innocent 
childhood. Of course, this incident has also a 
certain emotional value, yet it is chiefly illustrative. 
The incident already referred to in The Revolt of 
Mother, — that of Sarah Penn's making mince pies 
— , is illustrative. Still another in the same story 
is Adoniram's complaint that his wife should have 
kept the boy at home to help unload wood. Some- 
times an illustrative incident may serve to shed 
new light on a theme. It may approach the theme 
from a new direction, and become a means of 
"utmost emphasis" by presenting an additional 
circumstance. In They, the illness and death of 
Jenny's child is but to show the love of a mother. 
Such incidents are easily combined with those of 
movement or of illustration. 

Emotional incidents do not further the action of 
a story directly. They give tone and atmosphere 
and stimulate the reader's sympathy. They may 
be mood-giving and in absolute harmony with the 
tone; they may lighten a story by a sudden spark 
of humor. Whether they are used, however, to 
intensify or to relieve, they may assist in creating 
a single impression. Although emotional incidents 
may stand alone, as in The Madonna of the Future 
already referred to, they are usually combined with 
those of movement or of illustration. The inci- 
dent in Markheim of the striking of the clocks is 
a subtle blending of two kinds. Obviously, the 



86 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

emotional suspense is vastly heightened, yet one 
cannot deny that Markheim's conscience is thus 
prepared for what follows. The incident combines 
emotion and movement. The oftener such com- 
binations can be made, the stronger the story: for 
condensation increases rapidity and rapidity always 
tends toward directness. 

Just as one studies the kinds of incidents and 
seeks to vary them one with another, so one must 
be ever watchful that character and action and 
atmosphere appear in due proportion. Each ele- 
ment must receive a proper, but not an over- 
emphasis. In the relation of an incident or the 
description of a character a great many minor 
and seemingly needless details may be given. 
They exist for emphasis. In The Revolt of Mother, 
a host of details are given about Sarah Penn. First, 
one is given a picture of her; then one sees her in 
her household duties; is told how she washes dishes, 
sweeps, bakes pies. Next, one sees her in relation 
to her husband — first giving him a "plain talk," 
then making his shirts, then preparing him for his 
trip. Many of these details seem almost unneces- 
sary, but one must remember that this is a charac- 
ter story. At the climax, action is given its full 
chance. One witnesses the actual moving, the 
packing of the dishes, the carting of the household 
goods to the new barn, the transforming of the 
harness-room into the kitchen. Yet in everything, 
one is made to feel the force of character. In The 
Man Who Would Be King, little space is given to 



STRUCTURE 87 

direct character portrayal. Here action — adven- 
ture — is really the main point. In so far as is 
necessary, character is portrayed through this 
medium. In Mrs. Knollys, character and atmo- 
sphere are chiefly emphasized; in The Masque of 
the Red Death, atmosphere. Occasionally, a strik- 
ing character or a striking action may be best 
emphasized by few words. Briefness where one is 
expecting detail, may startle one into attention. 
Ordinarily, however, one should plan to give most 
space to that which demands most emphasis. 

One frequently finds another means of emphasis. 
A common device in music is to repeat a theme by 
variations, or to repeat some phrase over and over 
again. With every recurrence one is pleased, as at 
recognizing something familiar. The same device 
has been used with good effect in the Short-story. 
Poe recognized its value both for poetry and for 
prose. In the Short-story it may be variously 
used: sometimes the theme may be thus empha- 
sized; sometimes a refrain is suggestive of the 
climax, of the purpose, — sometimes only of tone. 
It may take several forms: it may be a set phrase 
or a genuine refrain; it may recur in variations of 
a single idea. Yet whatever the form, the device 
is sure to deepen the impression. These variations 
may stand out boldly, or they may be so deftly 
wrought into the context as to be scarcely notice- 
able. Yet the same subtle effect is always produced, 
and, though the device is simple, it is powerful for 
unity. Two or three kinds may appear in the same 



88 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

story without detracting from the effect of any one 
of them, or without becoming wearisome. 

In The Outcasts of Poker Flat, the theme is sug- 
gested several times. It is said of Mr. Oakhurst 
that he was "too much of a gambler not to accept 
Fate. With him life was at best an uncertain game." 
Again, he points out "the folly of 'throwing up 
their hand before the game was played out.'" He 
tells The Innocent that "Luck is a mighty queer 
thing. . . . And it's finding out when it's going to 
change that makes you. If you can hold your cards 
right along, you're all right." Later, he "settles 
himself coolly to the losing game before him." 
Finally, in the inscription, he speaks of himself 
as having "struck a streak of bad luck." These 
variations keep the theme ever before one's mind, 
without causing any strain in attention. In the 
same story, there is a refrain suggestive both of 
purpose and of climaxX 

In Mrs. Knollys, the variations of the theme are 
less easily distinguishable. Mrs. Knollys is intro- 
duced as hopeful-eyed, and Charles Knollys is said 
to have had "great hopes." Hope is shown again 
where the two, instead of looking at the mountain 
round them, are planning the furnishings for the 
cottage on Box Hill. The German scientist had 
a hope of refuting Spliithner's theory. Then Mrs. 
Knollys in her distress exclaims, "They said that 
they hoped he could be recovered," and out on his 
evening stroll the scientist echoes the remark. She 
lived with his memory. "Was he not coming back to 



STRUCTURE 89 

her?" "She knew the depths of human hope and 
sorrow." Mary Knollys had looked five and forty 
years ahead. On her last night of waiting, she had 
slept, "the glacier ever present in her dreams." 
Twice it is said of the glacier that "immortality 
lay brooding in its hollows." Here are many dif- 
ferent kinds of hope, to be sure, but they all echo 
the same spirit of quiet waiting, of a mind bent 
upon the future. 

In The Masque of the Red Death, the tall ebony 
clock intensifies mightily the awfulness of the scene. 
A refrain or a phrase repeated with variations may 
thus assist tone; it may even represent the steady, 
irresistible oncoming of destiny; if skilfully used, 
it might hasten movement itself and make action 
more tense. From a different field, in The Charge 
of the Light Brigade, one has a good instance. Action 
is definitely hastened by the repeated refrain: 

" Into the valley of death 
Rode the six hundred." 

To a passenger on an express train, the sight of 
telegraph poles streaming backwards along the way 
seems to accelerate the movement. As a matter 
of fact, the poles do not make progress; they only 
mark it. A refrain in a story of intense action may 
have like value. 

In directing attention continuously toward that 
which deserves greatest emphasis, the orderly ar- 
rangement of events within a story needs to be 
considered. It is a frequent stumbling-block. 
Some say that the chronological order is likely to 



90 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

make a story move slowly; that it may necessitate 
beginning too far back and admitting much irrel- 
evant detail; that a story can rarely be told in the 
order in which it happened. Others assert that 
the chronological is the natural order, and that it 
is a means of avoiding otherwise necessary inter- 
ruptions in the narrative. There is a measure 
of truth in both assertions. Much depends on 
the story, much on the skill of the writer. It is 
taken for granted that a writer who knows his 
business will not load a story with pointless detail. 
There is, of course, a certain amount of antecedent 
action which must be explained in almost every 
story. Yet one need not tell all this antecedent 
action as it is supposed to have happened, nor 
does one need to mass it all at the beginning. It 
may be distributed throughout the story, yet not 
interfere at all with chronological order. Of course, 
it would be awkward to lead one up to a point and 
then to turn deliberately to say, "It must be ex- 
plained that just four months before, while Jack 
was in the hayfield. ..." Such action may be 
explained within the story in a conversational 
passage, in a revery, by an incidental reference, by 
intimation, or by narrative amplification. 

If there is much antecedent action to be told, 
the task will naturally be somewhat more difficult. 
In The Revolt of Mother, Mrs. Freeman had to show 
the inconveniences that Sarah Penn had long endured 
at the hands of her husband. She might have 
marshaled these all at the beginning and then have 



STRUCTURE 91 

reviewed them. She chose a more artistic way. 
She began the story with the immediate provocation 
and let that lead to a review of the past in the 
accusation of the husband. Where the past con- 
cerns the main character alone, and records his own 
failures and successes, revery may take the place 
of conversation, as in Markheim. In these cases 
the antecedent action is made not to interrupt, but 
to forward the movement chronologically. In 
Marjorie Daw, the letters mention incidentally the 
trip that Edward Delaney and John Flemming had 
expected to take, and tell of Flemming's accident 
and its cause. The curio dealer intimates certain 
things about Markheim's past life. The first sen- 
tence of The Cask of Amontillado is but an intima- 
tion of preceding action. It does not enter into 
details. Several times in The Outcasts of Poker Flat, 
there is a direct reference to something that hap- 
pened before the opening of the story. Yet these 
references are in the nature of narrative amplifica- 
tions which may refer either backward or forward 
without disturbing the movement in any way. In 
The Man Who Would Be King, a strict chrono- 
logical order is followed, and the antecedent action 
is related as it happened before the story proper 
begins. It could not have been arranged differently, 
since the antecedent action here but introduces 
the man who is to be the narrator of his own 
experiences. 

Thus, in several ways, antecedent action may be 
handled. There is another difficulty, — that of 



92 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

arranging events which happen at the same time. 
In Mrs. Knollys, there is a good example of a direct 
violation of chronological order. The last sen- 
tence of the second division speaks of Mrs. Knollys' 
return to England. The first sentence of division 
three shows the German scientist just after he had 
found out his distressing blunder. Three para- 
graphs later, Mrs. Knollys is said to be living in 
the little cottage in Surrey. The break here seems 
unavoidable, unless these three paragraphs had 
been omitted. In such case, however, one would 
have felt only reproach for the coldness of the 
scientist. There would have been a note of harsh- 
ness in a story otherwise sweet. The story is better 
as it is, in spite of the interruption. Although there 
are many times when the nature of the story will 
make such violation advisable, the chronological 
order may be followed in most cases satisfactorily. 
Sometimes a Short-story is divided, as it were, 
into chapters. The divisions are marked by a 
row of asterisks, by Roman numerals, or simply 
by breaks in the pages. Although they appear 
in many good stories — in those of Henry James 
almost without exception — they are usually to be 
avoided. Where there seems to be a complete 
change in scene and a full break in the line of 
thought, they are excusable. The break would 
be all the more evident were one to reach it with- 
out a warning signal. In Mrs. Knollys, the divisions 
represent complete stages in the life of the main 
character; hence the breaks do not seem to jar 



STRUCTURE 93 

or to interfere with the story's totality. If the 
divisions represent only passage of time, they 
retard the movement and are in most cases worse 
than useless. Time intervals can generally be 
bridged over by a phrase or a sentence; sometimes 
they may be simply ignored. If a story can be 
built without chapters, it is a sore mistake to divide 
it. Even the stories in which a visible break is 
necessary seem thereby to lose force. They tempt 
the reader to take a rest; for if the story is in no 
hurry, why should he be? The divided story is, at 
least, liable to fail of producing a single impression. 
If is often somewhat of a problem, too, to know 
in what form to cast one's story; to find out what 
Mr. Pitkin calls the "angle of narration." Here, 
as elsewhere, one's best guide is common-sense aided 
by an instinct for propriety. A story may be told 
objectively as if by "an external omniscient person- 
ality." This means has long been popular. It has, 
of course, its disadvantages; it may at times lead 
to a lack of naturalness and vividness. Yet it 
allows one to see what is happening in all places 
and at all times; it permits one to know the inner 
thoughts and the hidden impulses; to analyze a 
situation or a character. From no other angle 
could Markheim have been told so effectively. The 
objective angle makes it easy to treat every one 
impersonally, and it allows one to concentrate all 
attention on the story and utterly to ignore the 
presence of a narrator. 0. Henry's After Twenty 
Years might have been told by a witness, but it 



94 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

would thus have lost in directness and have gained 
nothing for the extra trouble. Sometimes the 
objective is the only possible angle of narration. 
i The Outcasts of Poker Flat could never have been 
related with propriety in any other way. Four of 
the participants died within the story. Of the 
two who survived, Uncle Billy made his escape be- 
fore complications became serious. The Innocent, 
through the loss of Piney, was too deeply concerned 
to have acted as narrator. He might, perhaps, 
have related the story to a friend who in turn 
would have acted as narrator. Even this method 
would have been unsatisfactory. Piney would have 
been the main character; the outcasts, but friends 
and sharers of misfortune. He could never have 
told just what the Duchess and Piney did after the 
departure of Mr. Oakhurst. The story would have 
been incomplete. This objective angle of narra- 
tion, moreover, has the virtues of completeness 
and of simplicity. 

A story may be told from the angle of participant 
or of a witness. This angle makes for vividness 
and plausibility. One is always more eager to 
hear and more ready to believe the narration of 
what an acquaintance has seen or done than one is 
to hear and believe an impersonal, objective narra- 
tion. A narrator of a story becomes temporarily 
an acquaintance, and the story takes on the propor- 
tions of the actual. Especially vivid is an adven- 
ture story told from the angle of the main character. 
Of course, this angle precludes, as has been sug- 



STRUCTURE 95 

gested, the possibility of catastrophe. Yet one can 
still allow the narrator to be shipwrecked, to drift 
about on a piece of wreckage for a week, and finally 
to be picked up by a tramp steamer. The possibility 
of catastrophe makes the story more thrilling, but 
the certainty of hairbreadth escapes makes it more 
satisfying. 

Although the angle of main participant may be 
good in stories of action, it is ill adapted to the 
character story. The main character cannot dis- 
course on his own merits and peculiarities; he must 
become known entirely through his actions and 
manner of speech. For this reason, an accessory 
or minor character is often used as narrator. Thus 
a story may combine the possibility of characteri- 
zation with the vividness of actual participation. 
They is fittingly told from this angle. The blind 
woman could not have told the story with propriety. 
We should never have known her, never have heard 
her cry, "Children, children," or listened to her 

"In the pleasant orchard-closes." 

Nor could the story have been told objectively. 
The atmosphere is too refined, too unreal. We 
could never believe, even for the purposes of fic- 
tion, in such a blind woman, in such spirit children, 
unless, through the eyes of one who had seen and 
known, we, too, might see. This story — as are most 
others of its kind — is narrated in the first person. 
The "I," though making for vividness, must be 
used with care. It may at times become obtrusive, 



96 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

it may seem egotistic, and draw to itself more than 
its due of attention. At times, too, it may go 
outside its limit and seem to look at the story 
objectively. There are several ways of telling every 
story, and one should search diligently for the 
best. 

Sometimes, the participants are made to tell their 
story by a series of letters or by entries in a diary. 
This method is rarely used and is exceedingly 
difficult. A good letter is supposed to be newsy 
and full of detail of one kind and another. The 
letters of a story are allowed no such freedom. 
They must admit no detail which does not contrib- 
ute to the story, yet they must still keep their 
easy naturalness. It is hard, too, by means of 
letters to maintain interest and movement. One 
feels that, at best, letters are but a record of events, 
and they seem to lack vivacity. If they are all 
written by the same person, they must each time 
suggest what has been written back in answer. 
The diary method is subject to the same difficulties. 
It is likely to seem yet more flat than letters, for 
it must be written by one person, and it is addressed 
to no one in particular. Marjorie Daw is an example 
of the successful story told by letters. It is subject 
to frequent adverse criticism because it does not 
continue the letter form throughout. The climax 
is written from the objective angle. Thus the story 
lacks singleness of form. However much it is to 
be desired, singleness of form is not absolutely 
required of the Short-story. The change of form 




STRUCTURE 97 

need not destroy unity of impression. Indeed, in 
this story the change is required. The point of 
the story is that John Flemming should be so influ- 
enced by letters that he would go in person to The 
Pines. His going must be actual, if the story is to 
reach a climax. Between letters there is expected 
to be a time interval in which things have been 
happening. The break which comes from change 
of form — in a story told mainly by letters — is, 
therefore, not particularly noticeable. Of course, 
when possible, singleness of form as well as single- 
ness of impression is to be desired. 

When the narrator is himself a witness or an 
auditor, the story usually, though not always, 1 is 
a story within a story. There is a narrative intro- 
duction of one or more paragraphs after which 
some one, generally reluctantly, tells a tale which 
he, in turn, may have witnessed, or may have 
experienced as main or minor participant. This 
introduction may be told objectively or by an 
impersonal "I." An example or two may make 
the method more clear. The Man Who Would Be 
King begins with the impersonal "I" as narrator. 
In the introduction, he tells of his meeting Peachey 
Taliaferro Carnehan, who is to be the narrator of 
the real or inner story. Ordinarily, he would have 
relapsed then into the passive listener and Peachey 
would have taken up the story. It is not so in this 
case. Peachey Carnehan is to be an active par- 
ticipant only a little less important than the main 
1 Mrs. Knollys is an exception. 



98 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

character, Dravot. Furthermore, he does not tell 
his story as a story, but as the recital of his adven- 
tures in Kafiristan with his friend. Moreover, he 
is half crazed. Under these conditions, he can 
characterize neither his friend nor himself. Yet 
one needs to know the two characters and to be 
interested in their adventure before the real story 
begins. The impersonal "I" introduces, there- 
fore, not only Carnehan but Dravot, and tells 
something of his own experience with them. The 
structure is thus somewhat complicated. 

The Madonna of the Future illustrates a slightly 
different and more usual type. The introduction 
is again told by the impersonal "I." This time 
there is presented the conventional group of talkers, 
one of whom makes a remark which leads the others 
to demand of him the suggested story. He then 
begins, and, since he is a minor participant, hardly 
more than a witness, is free to describe fully the 
main character and comment upon him at will. 
There are, of course, still other methods of varying 
this device, which has been in use since the times 
of Boccaccio and Chaucer. Of course, the device 
adds vividness and plausibility, but it fails in several 
respects. It is hard to find an introduction fresh 
and original. At times there may be ambiguity 
as to just who is talking; too many details may be 
introduced at the beginning. The device may de- 
tract attention from the story to the manner of 
its telling, and it may — it frequently does — rise 
to a dramatic height in the telling which seems 



STRUCTURE 99 

unnatural for an oral narrator. The story may thus 
fail to convince of its reality. 1 

It seems hardly necessary to say that a story 
must above all else impress a reader with its genu- 
ineness. All the minutiae of structure should be 
arranged with an eye to verisimilitude. To be 
convincing, a story must seem so real that one can 
believe that it happened or seem to see it happening 
before one's eyes. If one feels that one's credulity 
is being imposed upon, one turns away in disgust. 
Even a fairy story must for the time seem real, if 
it is to prove interesting; it must have qualities 
which will make the imagination move with it in 
utter subjection. Rarely do grown people enjoy 
fairy stories as do children, for the obvious reason 

1 It is worth while to note the relative frequency of use of 
these "angles of narration" by several of the great Short-story 
writers. In 136 stories of Maupassant, the objective angle is 
found in 61; that of participant, in 21; of witness or auditor, 
in 4; of the story within a story, in 17 + 33. For 72 stories 
of Kipling the record is: objective angle, 40; participant, 9; 
witness or auditor, 13; story within a story, + 10. For 135 
stories of 0. Henry, it is: objective, 100; participant, 13; wit- 
ness or auditor, 10; story within a story, + 12. For 33 of Poe, 
it is 3, objective; 23, participant; 5, witness or auditor; + 2, 
story within a story. Out of 10 stories of Stevenson, 7 have 
the objective angle; 2, that of participant; 0, that of witness 
or auditor; + 1, that of the story within a story. For 26 
stories of Henry James the record is; 14, objective; 5, parti- 
cipant; 3, witness or auditor; + 4, story within a story. 
When two numbers are given for a story within a story, the 
first signifies those whose introductions are objective; the sec- 
ond, those which have an introduction by an auditor or wit- 
ness. Not all the stories examined conform to the strictly 
modern Short-story form. 



100 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

that the imaginations of mature persons have been 
blunted by contact with an actual world. They no 
longer have the power to move in and out through 
fanciful realms, to slay dragons, and to find dwarfs 
beneath the roots of mammoth trees. For them, 
real dragons of an actual world must be slain by real 
people. Men and women pride themselves on their 
ability to discern between the true and the false. 
They will not suffer themselves to be chased by 
imaginary robbers nor will they kneel to await the 
stroke of fantastic battle-axemen. So long as they 
feel that a story is all make-believe, nothing can 
persuade them to read it in more than a half-hearted 
way, if, indeed, they read it at all. "In other words 
a realist that is an artist as well, selects not only 
what is true, but also what will immediately without 
argument seem true." 1 

No one supposes nowadays, that a story to seem 
genuine must be "an exact transcript of life." The 
skilful artist masks the actual by the real; he tears 
down only that he may build something more ideally 
beautiful and true. A character trait may be made 
to stand out in exaggerated significance, an incident 
may be shorn of half its detail, a motive may be 
entirely suppressed, yet the story may be lifelike, 
and true in its underlying idea. The most wildly 
imaginative tale, however, may have truth of idea 
and still fail to be convincing. It may need some- 
thing to link it with actual experience, some con- 
tact with what one knows personally. In They, the 
1 Fansler, Types of Prose Narratives, p. 429. 



STRUCTURE 101 

reader is made to approach very near the unreal and 
purely fanciful, yet Kipling has made certain that 
the story shall be convincing. Spirit children 
and an automobile speeding across the downs seem 
incongruous. At first the idea seems to jar one's 
sense of propriety. Yet the careful description of 
the race across the downs and the later repairing of 
the machine certainly place the story in present times 
and link it to the vulgar earth. The automobile is, 
however, not a part of the external description, a 
mere something thrown in to make the story more 
plausible; it is a part of the story itself. But for it, 
there would have been no story; for it is the machine, 
rare in those parts, that first stirs the woman's 
interest. By frequent contact with actuality the 
whole story becomes convincing. Poe's stories are 
convincing by their vividness. They are not real, 
not actual, they seem a collection of bad dreams; 
yet, while reading them, one falls completely under 
their spell. Kipling made the story of The Man 
Who Would Be King — wild and fantastic as it is — 
seem real partly by making one feel the burning, 
suffocating heat of a summer night in India. We 
have not all known India, but we have all known 
heat of some sort, and, in our imaginations, are able 
to intensify it. By any of these ways, or by all of 
them, a story may be made convincing. 

Of course, to make a story seem true, one need not 
limit oneself to incidents and extended descriptions. 
Details scattered here and there throughout the 
story are equally effective. If a girl faints at sight 



102 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

of a cow, by all means one should call it a red 
cow or a black. If the setting is a New York restau- 
rant, it should be verified by a few rapid strokes. 
Details of place and time always make a story defi- 
nite. Characters, too, may be allowed to make 
confirmatory remarks, so that the story may seem 
to be vouched for. Stevenson at times used foot- 
notes for this purpose. Slight references now and 
then to actual facts and occurrences help. Of more 
value, however, than any mere device, is the exact 
fitting of part with part. All structure may be 
made to count toward a story's verisimilitude. 



THE END AND THE BEGINNING 

First impressions and last impressions are gen- 
erally the most definite; first, because the mind is 
free and ready to receive them; last, because noth- 
ing may follow to modify or to change them. It is 
natural, therefore, that the beginning and the end 
of any discourse are important structurally, and 
that of the two, end deserves the more careful 
handling. In the Short-story, end is far more 
important than is beginning; it marks the point of 
deepest impression. From the start, the end is 
kept in view. To it, one looks with greatest expecta- 
tion. For it, all the momentum of the story gathers. 
It is not a summation as is the end of a debate; it 
is rather the final enforcement of the single effect. 
If the end is sharp, it will intensify the single impres- 
sion; if it is weak, it may dissipate it and leave the 
reader disappointed. A story should never promise 
more than it can fulfil. Unless the end is satis- 
factory, the whole story fails. A piece of pottery 
may be artistically modeled, but if it breaks in the 
last burning, it is worse than useless, for it represents 
waste. Unless a story fulfils one's expectations, it 
is but a waste of time and energy. It is the function 
of the end not only to bring a story to a fitting close, 



104 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

but to fill it out to completeness by presenting the 
single impression in its final intensity. 

There is, of course, no one best way of ending a 
story. One must be guided by the nature of the 
story and of the single impression to be presented. 
One story may stop abruptly at the moment of 
climax; others must continue for a few sentences or 
for a few paragraphs. All, however, should end the 
moment the story is complete. All extra words 
at the last detract from the impression. A more 
simple, less prolonged end would have been possible 
in The Madonna of the Future. One feels satisfied 
after Mr. Theobald's death to know that he lay 
buried in his beloved Florence, and one rather resents 
in the story the further intrusion of the minor 
characters. There is a close harmony here between 
structure and the nature of the story. Long musing 
and idle dreaming would not have been well adapted 
to a hurried treatment. Some of the long and 
partially irrelevant portions can be excused on that 
account, — but not the end. Henry James was 
developing a situation. Yet with the passing of the 
dreamer passed also the dream, and there the story 
should have ended. Too long an end, however rele- 
vant, may lose by failing to be sharp. Too short an 
end may be, however, just as dangerous, if it fail to 
complete the story and leave the reader not fully 
satisfied. 

An end may be, however, at once abrupt and 
complete. Climax and conclusion may be simulta- 
neous. Nothing is left to be explained; the story is 



THE END AND THE BEGINNING 105 

its own sufficient comment. The end is the natural 
and unmistakable outcome of the plot, yet it may 
be unsuspected until the last sentence or even until 
"the last word. Progress towards climax may be 
furthered by devices so subtly concealed that they 
become evident only after the story is reviewed. 
Such construction attains the ideal of Short-story 
form in rapidity and directness. Notice the end of 
Stevenson's Markheim: 

"He confronted the maid upon the threshold with 
something like a smile. 

"'You had better go for the police,' said he: 'I 
have killed your master.'" 

At the end of the first of these sentences, the 
reader is still in suspense. Is Markheim smiling, 
one wonders, at the thought of killing the maid, or 
at victory over his own evil nature? The last 
sentence relieves the suspense entirely by giving the 
answer. One cares to know no more. The story is 
complete. 0. Henry is a master of this sort of end- 
ing. The end of nearly every one of his stories is 
a surprise. Until the final paragraph of After 
Twenty Years, one has had no suspicion that the 
policeman who first appears is Jimmy Wells. Yet 
when one reviews the story one recognizes indica- 
tions of the outcome. When the policeman saw the 
stranger leaning against the door, he slowed his pace 
and walked up to him. He would have acted thus 
on his usual round. Yet in the light of the story's 
end one sees in this commonplace the action of a 



106 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

man eager to recognize in the stranger his former 
friend. Later, he asks of Bob, "Going to call time 
on him sharp?" Jimmy Wells is making his plan. 
Still later, the plain-clothes man impersonating 
Jimmy speaks of his "position in one of the city 
departments." These remarks seem only natural, 
yet as one looks back, they are especially significant. 
Without them, the story would be incomplete and 
unsatisfactory, for the end would seem an accidental, 
rather than a necessary, logical, outcome. Many 
stories with ends such as these are likely to become 
wearisome. One fails to appreciate surprises, once 
they have become frequent, and one turns with relief 
to a more gradual end. 

Often the nature of the story is such that climax 
and conclusion cannot be made to coincide. The 
climax itself introduces new questions. Until these 
are answered, the story is not complete. Suspense 
may be relieved while interest in the effect of climax 
is sustained. This end simply gathers up loose 
strands and satisfies final curiosity. In The Revolt 
of Mother, several paragraphs intervene between 
climax and end. These are necessary to the com- 
pleteness of the story. One needs to know the 
effect of Mrs. Penn's act on the neighborhood and 
especially on Mr. Penn. The full force of the 
climax for the two main characters in They does not 
become evident at once. In The Man Who Would Be 
King, the end is long and somewhat complex. After 
the climax three things are yet necessary to the 
completion of the story: the narrator must present 



THE END AND THE BEGINNING 107 



the fulfilment of the latter half of the purpose ex- 
pressed at the beginning, and bring his story to a 
close; the reader must be satisfied as to the fate of 
Carnehan. Usually, an end is less complex. The 
more simple the end, the more forceful, as a rule, 
will be the single impression. This sort of end, too, 
may conclude with a surprise, as in Marjorie Daw. 
In this case, also, it is interesting to notice how the 
conclusion has been prepared for during the story. 
In the fifth letter, Edward Delaney says that Mar- 
jorie Daw seems "like some lovely phantom that 
had sprung into existence out of the smoke-wreaths." 
In the eighth letter, he calls her "a shadow, a chi- 
mera," and he speaks of himself as "in the incon- 
gruous position of having to do with mere souls, with 
natures so finely tempered that I run some risk of 
shattering them in my awkwardness." In the ninth 
letter, again, "it all appears like an illusion, — the 
black masses of shadow under the trees, the fireflies 
whirling in Pyrrhic dances among the shrubbery, the 
sea over there, Marjorie sitting on the hammock." 
Of course it appears an illusion to Edward Delaney, 
but it all seems real to every one else until the last 
sentence. 

There is frequently found yet another sort of end. 
It is neither climax nor the result of climax.. It 
answers no questions. It is simply an intensifier 
of single effect, or a narrative comment. It is easy 
to overdo this sort of ending. It is easy to make 
irrelevant remarks or unduly to prolong the relevant. 
It is possible, however, to make this end a means of 



108 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

deepening the simple impression and completing the 
story. A comment may but express the feeling 
already in a reader's heart, as in The Outcasts of Poker 
Flat where John Oakhurst is called "the strongest 
and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat." 
Mrs. Knollys might have ended with the words, 
"She was living, he was dead; and she was two and 
forty years older than he." We should have been 
satisfied and have asked no further questions. Yet 
the longer end brings out more fully the pathetic 
sweetness of the story and realizes more completely 
the final triumph of hope. Notice the final para- 
graph of The Masque of the Red Death: 

"And now was acknowledged the presence of the 
Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. 
And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood- 
bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the 
despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the 
ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. 
And the flames of the tripods expired. And Dark- 
ness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable 
dominion over all." 

This end is unnecessary to the understanding of 
the story, but it intensifies mightily the impression 
of horror that pervades the whole. 

In a story of perfect workmanship there should be 
harmony between end and beginning. Often it is 
noticeable between even the first and the last sen- 
tences. This harmony unifies the final impression 
as perhaps no other structural device can. Yet the 



THE END AND THE BEGINNING 109 

device need not seem artificial, for it effects but a full 
close and manifests itself often so subtly as to be 
scarcely recognizable. It may appear as a corre- 
spondence of atmosphere, or in mood contrast, in 
identity of character, in the realization of some 
suggestion made at the beginning. In After Twenty 
Years, the first paragraph pictures the typical police- 
man; the last sentence shows the same conscientious 
guardian of the peace with the heart of a friend. The 
first sentence of The Outcasts of Poker Flat awakens 
expectations in regard to John Oakhurst; the last 
sentence stills them.Vv In Mrs. Knollys, the closing 
sentence reverts to the glacier described at the begin- 
ning. The last sentence of They harmonizes with 
the vague, elusive atmosphere of an indeterminate 
dreamland suggested at the opening of the story: 

"She left me to sit a little longer, only a little 
longer, by the screen, and I heard the sound of her 
feet die out along the gallery above." 

End and beginning may be so skilfully wrought 
into harmony that they suggest much of the inter- 
vening story. Notice the first sentence of The Cask 
of Amontillado, and the last three: 

"The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne 
as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, 
I vowed revenge." 

"Against the new masonry I re-erected the old 
rampart of bones. For the half of a century no 
mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat" 



110 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

One does not know the circumstances of revenge, 
yet one knows the means. The end is the fulfilment 
of the beginning. The last sentence is particularly 
expressive. The revenge was complete, for the 
avenger had never felt remorse. Thus end and 
beginning should be considered not as separate 
entities, but as varying expressions of the dominant 
note of the story, set in the places made akin by 
their importance for emphasis. 

Beginning, in the Short-story, is as indefinite in 
length as is end. It may be a sentence, a paragraph, 
several paragraphs, or even pages. It may shade 
off into the story proper so delicately that one fails 
to recognize its limit. As soon as the reader is 
thoroughly interested, however, — in short, when- 
ever he senses narrative complication, — a story may 
be said to be begun. One may thoroughly enjoy a 
narrative description or exposition without being 
aware that anything is going to happen. Yet one 
does not sense a story, until one sees a possibility of 
plot ahead. Some additional factor offering a chance 
of resistance must present itself. One need not be 
able to hazard a guess as to the main complication 
of the plot; one need merely feel that something 
interesting may result from the situation as indicated. 
One may read the records of two football teams and 
the lists of the weights and heights of their respective 
men, but not until one sees the two teams on one 
field, does one sense a game. Thus characters in a 
story may be described one after the other and no 
complication be indicated. If, however, they are 



THE END AND THE BEGINNING 111 

shown in a situation which will bring them into 
contact, one awakes to the possibility of interesting 
results. The introduction of new and different 
narrative factors always presupposes that something 
is going to happen. When plot thus begins to show 
itself, interest quickens, and the story is begun. 

Although varying greatly in length and in content, 
beginnings are similar in their functions. A good 
beginning should set the emotional tone of a story, 
and should introduce its main characters. By set- 
ting the emotional tone at the beginning, much may 
be accomplished toward a definite unity of impres- 
sion; since a false or jarring tone will at once be 
felt as discordant and may then be excluded. Em- 
phasized at the beginning, it is fixed and helps to 
shape the reader's attitude toward all the incidents 
of the story. This tone may be fixed actively by a 
striking of the dominant note of a story; passively, 
by setting. An active influence is more rapid than 
a passive; hence the beginning in which setting is 
prominent is likely to be longer than that in which 
tone is fixed by the dominant note. As the tones 
of stories differ, so also will beginnings differ in 
length and in nature. Not all tones are capable of 
the same expression. Some may best be expressed 
actively, some passively. With regard to the second 
function of the beginning, character must be present 
before it becomes possible to sense complication. 
Since the limits of the Short-story are restricted and 
since minor characters are introduced simply as they 
affect a main character or the details of plot develop- 



112 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

ment, it is natural that main characters should be 
presented first. Because of their importance they 
should be granted the emphasis of the initial position. 
It is not necessary that in the beginning characters 
be fully described, or that they appear in action; 
they may be merely mentioned sufficiently to make 
one sense a new situation. A skilful beginning 
involves more than the necessity of making a start; 
it should be in some way significant. 

It is usual in stories of character that character is 
strongly evident at the beginning; in stories of action 
that action is from the start indicated; in stories of 
atmosphere that setting is emphasized at the first. 
Yet aside from their use in indicating the kind of 
story, these elements of action and character and 
setting are of value as forms of beginning. Of these 
forms, action is likely to be the most immediately 
interesting. It may, even in a single sentence, set the 
emotional tone and introduce the main characters. 
Even action may be presented, however, in several 
ways more or less forceful as they are more or less 
direct. One may listen to a detailing of a plan for 
future action, one may hear a record-like statement 
of past action, or one may actually witness action as 
taking place. Although many times action offers 
the quickest way of presenting certain preliminaries, 
it is not always the best way of beginning. 

The presentation of character or of setting, of 
necessity less definite and less immediately interest- 
ing, requires a more extended beginning than does 
action. Since character is necessary to complica- 



THE END AND THE BEGINNING 113 

tion, it may fittingly begin almost any sort of story. 
Yet character may be exceedingly interesting or 
exceedingly uninteresting, according as its presenta- 
tion is of a living being or of an animated stick or 
company of sticks. Combined with action, char- 
acter is much more natural and to that extent more 
effective as a form of beginning. Setting is used as 
a beginning, for the most part, in stories of atmos- 
phere or in stories where atmosphere or setting is 
important as an influence. Since, however, it is 
valuable in effecting emotional tone, it may be used 
as a beginning for almost any sort of story. A 
gloomy description makes one gloomy, a bright 
description makes one joyous, a description of things 
vague and but half-seen makes one dreamy. Rarely 
will any of these forms of beginning be present to the 
exclusion of all others. They will be mingled in 
varying degrees. Thus their advantages may be 
combined. 

Sometimes one finds another sort of beginning — 
that which consists of generalizations on the theme 
or purpose of a story. Such an introduction is really 
a prelude to the actual beginning. In generaliza- 
tions themselves, one can sense no complication. 
One must await the beginning of the application, 
which is not expository but narrative in method. 
This generalized form rarely adds to the force of a 
story; it is not vital. It may set the tone, but it 
cannot easily introduce the main characters. While 
in many cases introductory generalizations are mere 
commonplaces of mediocrity, sometimes they are so 



114 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

originally expressed that they are of real value in 
giving the spirit of a story. A dull and awkward 
beginning is a mark of a dull and inartistic story. 
Unnecessarily long or irrelevant introductions are 
foreign to the nature of the Short-story and but 
hamper progress. 

A beginning, whether long or short, should from 
the first arouse interest of some sort. It should 
be so uniquely suggestive of character, of action, 
of setting, that it will awaken curiosity and stimu- 
late to further reading. A first sentence need 
rarely set in motion a whole story. Yet it should 
win attention. It may arouse interest by any 
one of several slightly varying ways. Perhaps the 
simplest of these is to put the reader in a question- 
ing attitude. The first sentence may seem in- 
complete or vague: it does not tell all that one 
wishes to know. It stirs up in the reader's mind 
questions which it leaves unanswered. In the 
hope of satisfying curiosity, one continues to read. 
An opening sentence, however, may present no 
questions; it may in itself be mildly interesting 
and put the reader in a receptive mood in which he 
is willing simply to settle back in his chair and 
listen. Or it may create an unsatisfied longing for 
one knows not what — just as does an autumn day 
or a curve in the road ahead. It calls one away 
from the commonplace, and lures one on by its 
simple charm. Rarely, it becomes still stronger 
and irresistibly grips one with the intensity of its 
gloom or brightness. At times, the first sentence 



THE END AND THE BEGINNING 115 

may be but a fact statement made impressive by 
the unusual significance of its content. Occasion- 
ally, too, an unexpectedly exact description, in a 
first sentence, of something familiar, rouses not 
only one's admiration, but a question as to the 
reason for such exactness. All these forms are 
but slightly varying appeals to one's curious interest. 
The first sentence should have the power of stirring 
this interest; every sentence thereafter, that of sus- 
taining it until a narrative complication is sensed 
and the story is under way. 

In order to illustrate these principles, it may be 
worth while to examine several beginnings in their 
completeness. The one-sentence beginning of The 
Cask of Amontillado has been already quoted and 
its strength suggested. Direct and vigorous as it 
is, it scarcely surpasses the opening words of The 
Revolt of Mother: 

"Father!" 
"What is it?" 

"What are them men diggin' over there in the 
field for?" 

The first word makes one listen. It is insistent. 
The answer but continues the question in one's 
mind. The next sentence is still a question. It 
relieves one's anxiety. There has been no accident 
in the home. Yet it arouses more than curious 
interest. One wonders why so simple a question 
demanded so much urgency. The "diggin' over 
in the field" evidently means more than curiosity 



116 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

to the questioner. Something was going on which 
she had a right to know and did not know. She 
had not been consulted. A tone of wounded sen- 
sibility is felt. At this point, one may be said to 
sense complication. There is trouble of some sort 
in the air. In this beginning, the main characters 
are introduced, and the special anxiety of the ques- 
tioner singles her out as of. the two the more im- 
portant. Though the beginning takes the form of 
action, both character and action are plainly indi- 
cated as entering into the story. 
Markheim begins: 

"Yes," said the dealer, "our windfalls are of 
various kinds. Some customers are ignorant, and 
then I touch a dividend on my superior knowledge. 
Some are dishonest," and here he held up the 
candle, so that the light fell strongly on his visitor, 
"and in that case," he continued, "I profit by my 
virtue." 

The first sentence here puts the reader at once 
into a questioning attitude. To whom was the 
dealer talking? In what was he a dealer? Of 
what sort were his windfalls? What had just been 
passing in conversation? All of these questions 
arise from the first sentence. They are not all 
answered even when one has read the whole of the 
beginning, for as one reads, one's curiosity is turned 
to suspicion. The visitor's purpose becomes doubt- 
ful. Perhaps he is not a simple customer. Com- 
plication is sensed and the story begun. The main 



THE END AND THE BEGINNING 117 

characters have been introduced, the dominant tone 
of restless suspicion has been set. The beginning 
fulfils all that is demanded of it. 

To these short beginnings that of Mrs. Knollys, 
comprising the whole of the first section, "presents 
a contrast. More than a page is given to the de- 
scription of the Pasterzen glacier, more than two 
pages to a description of Charles and Mary Knollys. 
Not until the end of the section, when Charles 
Knollys slips into the crevasse, is there any sensing 
of possible complication. Meantime, we have been 
made acquainted with the main characters and have 
seen the glacier slow and silent in its moving, 
"like a timepiece marking the centuries." As the 
shadows of the planets find reflection in the face of 
the glacier and the moonbeam in the face of Mrs. 
Knollys, so the tone of quiet strength of the one 
seems echoed in the changeless affection of the 
other. Character and atmosphere thus mingle in 
creating a single impression. The beginning is 
long because of the necessary harmony between 
structure and tone. The spirit of the glacier 
could not be expressed in a few short, hurried 
sentences. It must be impressed slowly and grad- 
ually. Here, too, the long waiting through five 
and forty years must find its counterpart. Notice 
even the first sentence: 

"The great Pasterzen glacier rises in Western 
Austria, and flows into Carinthia, and is fourteen 
or seventeen miles long, as you measure it from its 



118 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

birth in the snow field or from where it begins to 
move from the higher snows and its active course is 
marked by the first wrinkle." 

Slow in movement, mildly interesting in content, 
this sentence puts the reader in a receptive mood 
during which he is willing to listen to anything 
which may follow. 

The first sentence of They provokes no questions. 
It does more than put one in a receptive mood; it 
creates an unsatisfied longing. Although one senses 
no complication until the appearance of Miss 
Florence, one is interested from the first in the 
beauty of shifting landscape. Like the narrator, 
the reader is called by a lingering curiosity from 
one view to another, from "one hill top to its fellow 
half across the county" — until one has passed 
over the Downs and along the coast and through 
the wooded hills to the ancient lichened house 
and has seen the children looking out from mul- 
lioned windows. Here is set a dreamy, vague 
atmosphere in which indeed a Shakespeare or a 
Queen Elizabeth might appear and call one in to 
tea. It is with quickened interest, then, that one 
greets Miss Florence and finds that she is blind. 
Surely one is about to encounter some unusual 
experience. Here, then, one may set the limit of 
the beginning. The tone of mystery has been set. 
Even the children are out of reach and seem of the 
atmosphere. The main characters, too, Miss 
Florence and the narrator, have been introduced. 



THE END AND THE BEGINNING 119 

A long beginning was here made necessary by the 
elusiveness of the story's tone. 

The beginning of The Masque of the Red Death 
extends through the first sentence of the second 
paragraph. The opening sentence interests one 
because of the startling significance of its content: 
"The 'Red Death' had long devastated the coun- 
try." The remainder of this paragraph of expository 
setting, by thrilling one with its extreme awfulness, 
sets the emotional tone of horror. It is, however, 
not until the first sentence of the second paragraph 
that one senses complication. "But the Prince 
Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious." 
This sentence sounds the note of alarm. Something 
is about to happen. 

After Twenty Years begins with descriptive char- 
acter-sketching and setting. Until the third para- 
graph, when the policeman and the stranger meet 
in front of the hardware store, there is no possible 
chance for complication. Character and setting 
have both combined in giving the tone as one of 
security. The shops are closed for the night, the 
rain has driven the people off the street. A police- 
man alone is seen on his round. Then when he 
meets a stranger in the door of a darkened hard- 
ware store, suspicion arises. The first sentence 
here is different from any yet examined. "The 
policeman on the beat moved up the avenue 
impressively." The description at once appeals be- 
cause of its exactness. To move impressively is 
the manner of all policemen. Yet the picture pre- 



120 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

sented is so familiar that exactness is unexpected 
and awakens immediate interest. From the first 
sentence to the last, the beginning is skilful. 

The Man Who Would Be King begins with a 
generalizing prelude which sets the "happy-go- 
lucky" tone of the whole story. The first sentence 
is not interesting. The motto to which it refers is, 
however, interesting. It is doubtful whether the 
first paragraph adds anything to the interest already 
awakened by the motto. The second paragraph 
suggests the rather unusual setting of a rather 
unusual story. It is not until the third paragraph, 
when the narrator and the huge gentleman in shirt- 
sleeves come in contact, that complication is sensed. 
The main characters of the outer story are intro- 
duced, and the story is begun. Within this first 
story, Daniel Dravot, who is to become the main 
character of the inner story, is introduced. When 
Carnehan returns to tell the story of his adventures, 
the inner story begins. The picture of the man 
now scarcely recognizable as a human being stirs 
curious interest, but when Carnehan says, "Kings we 
were, with crowns upon our heads — me and Dravot 
— poor Dan — oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never 
take advice, not though I begged of him!" compli- 
cation is sensed. One tone serves for both stories, 
for the two are after all one complete story. 

It is evident that beginnings may vary widely, 
yet be equally perfect. They may be long or short, 
descriptive or expository, indicative of complication 
in the first sentence, or but mildly interesting. 



THE END AND THE BEGINNING 121 

They are whatever the nature of the story dictates 
as best. It should be yet more clearly evident, too, 
how close is the relationship between the end and the 
beginning. Until the end has been determined, the 
method of the introduction of the main characters 
cannot be determined or the tone settled upon. 



VI 

THE TITLE 

Every story has a name which differs from ordi- 
nary names in that it is in some way indicative of 
the story it represents. It may be derived from the 
theme, the subject, the characters, the setting, the 
dominant motive of the main character, or from 
any of the important structural expedients, as the 
fancy and the judgment of the writer dictate. In 
any case, a title should be significant and justified 
by the story. Although simply a heading, it may 
serve finally to bring home the power of a story. 
From the end, one turns back instinctively to the 
title for comparison. If possible, then, the title 
should seem the crowning expression of a story. 
Yet its first use is without doubt to point forward, 
since from the beginning the reader is on the watch 
for its explanation. It may excite curiosity and 
attract the reader, or it may repel him entirely. 
Because a title fails to claim attention or to make 
just the appeal which should be made, a good story 
is frequently passed over unread. At times the 
writer may chance upon an effective title, but prob- 
ably more often chooses it carefully in accordance 
with the nature of the story. Whether it occurs 
to one of a sudden or whether it is deliberately 



THE TITLE 123 

sought out, a good title will rather generally be 
found in keeping with certain definite principles. 

First of all, the good title is brief. It is in no 
sense a resume, it is not the full story packed in a 
few words; it is a hint, a suggestion. It may be 
one word, and in that case the word must be exceed- 
ingly expressive. It may at times be a half-dozen 
words. A good title, however, needs only occa- 
sionally to go beyond this limit. The length of a 
name does not add dignity, and it may detract from 
suggestiveness. Names are ordinarily short, be- 
cause there is no necessity of their being long. A 
long title suggests a long and rambling story. It 
inclines one to believe that the writer has had diffi- 
culty in cornering his ideas. A short title, however, 
does not necessarily represent a short story. A defi- 
nite idea demands terse expression. It is as wrong 
to tell too much and quell curiosity at the start as 
it is to intimate too little and fail to excite interest. 
Here, as in most things, there is a happy mean. 

The good title, too, is found to be unique. It is 
so individual, so strikingly new and original, that 
one's attention is immediately fastened upon it. 
It is so distinctive that one cannot fail to notice it. 
The value put upon uniqueness is easily seen, when 
one considers the striving there is after something 
new in the way of advertising. When something 
surprisingly original appears among advertisements, 
it is greeted with general applause, and for the time 
its appearance is almost as popular as that of a 
new piece of ragtime or of slang. It is imitated in 



124 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

every conceivable way until it ceases to interest, 
and wears on the reader's patience. The case in 
literature is analogous. People are always search- 
ing for the unused. They have an eye always open 
for new expressions, new comparisons, new epithets. 
A fresh title is esteemed of great value. It is cer- 
tain to be attractive, because it is unexpected and 
untried. It is just as certain to be imitated. The 
Man Who Would Be King and The Man Who Was 
are good titles, unique and pleasing. If, however, 
one glances down a catalogue of present-day fiction, 
The Man Who — did this or that, will appear two 
or three times a page. This title has become so 
common that it falls flat upon the imagination. 
One can scarcely over-emphasize the need for the 
unworked and the distinctive in titles. 

It is for this reason that names of characters 
often fail as story titles. A name must be unusual 
and of striking connotation to stand at the head of 
a story. Markheim is not distinctive. There is 
nothing in the name which indicates anything un- 
usual in the character. One might easily pass the 
story by. Even Mrs. Knollys fails to attract atten- 
tion. Knollys is, to be sure, an uncommon name; 
yet there is nothing in its sound which makes a 
definite appeal. Unless a name seems indirectly 
to indicate something of a character, it would better 
be unused. Often, however, character stories seem 
most naturally named for their main characters, 
and at times it may be more important to have an 
appropriate than a unique title. 



THE TITLE 125 

The third requisite of an ingenious title is definite- 
ness. One gains from the name some clear idea of 
what the story is about. The title is not vague nor 
capable of being interpreted finally in several dif- 
ferent ways. It should not be a blanket term, 
which by the extent of its possible meaning fails to 
give any sharp impression. A general term may 
easily be applied to a story, but it has no individual 
flavor; hence it does not excite interest. Fruit 
does not mean plums; flowers do not make one 
think of violets. Balzac named one of his stories 
An Episode Under the Terror. The story deserves 
a much stronger name. Anything might be an 
episode, and anything might have happened during 
The Terror. One does not know what to expect. 
It is the business of a title to particularize, so that 
there will be something around which one's thoughts 
may gather. The Tragedy of a Comic Song seems 
also ineffective. Definiteness of association goes 
far toward making a title. 

In addition to being definite, a felicitous title is 
honest. It represents truly the story for which 
it stands. Relevant and appropriate, it gives not 
only a definite impression but a true impression. 
It refers not to something which is of little or no 
significance, but to some character, or action, or 
motive, or setting, which enters into the life of the 
story. Without being too exact, it may accord 
with the single impression and in some sense prepare 
the reader. The Cask of Amontillado is an honest 
title, for the cask is the decoy which Montresor uses 



126 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

in leading Fortunato into the damp vaults. When 
there is any mention of desisting, one always hears 
echoing the single exclamation, "The Amontillado." 
Although honest, this title is perhaps less exact 
than that which Maupassant has chosen for his 
story of revenge, line Vendetta. It is, however, 
decidedly more unique and attractive. The Out-^ 
^-casts of Poker Flat is an honest title; so is The Revolt 
of Mother; so, The Necklace; so are nearly all the 
titles of good stories. Absolute honesty is perhaps 
the first thing sought in selecting a title. Whatever 
the name may be, it should be able to stand the test 
of the reading of the story, and should not leave 
one wondering, when all is said, as to its application. 
Careful writers see to it that their titles are pleas- 
ing; that is to say, that they seem in good taste. 
In making stories there is always use for a sense of 
propriety. There are many titles which might 
startle one into attention, yet be essentially vulgar. 
A story of real artistic merit has a name aesthetically 
fit, just as has a beautiful poem. Here The Brush- 
wood Boy deserves mention. It suggests a free, 
unsophisticated naturalness, which arouses pleasing 
anticipations. There seems in it a joyous freedom 
unhampered by restraint. No less pleasing is The 
Merry Men. In addition to their suggestiveness, 
both of these titles are euphonious. So, truly, is 
Marjorie Daw, which in other respects fails to make 
any unusual impression. Euphony is valuable, of 
course, but alone it does not make a name effective. 
Even in the titles of his most sensational stories, 



THE TITLE 127 

Poe is careful not to offend simple good taste. He 
rarely uses an unpleasing title. The Fall of the 
House of Usher has a certain rhythm in its move- 
ment. Berenice is certainly restrained. A definitely 
pleasing title, however, is always an advantage. 

It is still more important that the title of a story 
should be thought-arresting and compelling. It is 
not enough that it catches one's attention; it must 
hold one by the force of its suggestion. It should 
be a spur to one's imagination and set one to think- 
ing actively. The Madonna of the Future is such a 
title. It is modest and unassuming and might 
easily head a magazine article. Yet it is honest, 
unique, pleasing, and thought-compelling. The 
word "Madonna" is associated neither with the 
present nor with the future, but with the past. 
To paint the Madonna was to embody the ideal in 
art. "The Future" suggests the indefinite, the 
unattained and perhaps unattainable. Thus to 
link the two ideas in one title is at once to suggest 
the whole range of thoughts which may cluster 
around the striving after an ideal always just beyond. 
The title seems almost an expression of yearning 
which cannot fail to arrest and compel one's atten- 
tion, and remain as a haunting memory in one's 
mind, long after the story is read. The really power- 
ful title is always thought-compelling. 

Yet in making a title thought-compelling, all the 
qualities previously mentioned have a share. Notice 
They. It is short, consisting not of four words, but 
of four letters, which when united form only a pro- 



128 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

noun. It might refer to things or to persons, — 
though one naturally gives the preference to persons. 
Whether they are men, women, or children; whether 
they are in the flesh or in the spirit, one does not 
yet know. It is obviously unique. In some sense, 
too, it is definite, for it points to several persons who 
are already known so familiarly that one can refer to 
them thus in perfect understanding. Its indefmite- 
ness is its fitness, its honesty. They are the center 
about which the story is built. They, as a title, is 
pleasing because it seems half-veiled in mystery; 
and it is thought-arresting and compelling because 
it is crowded full of unrealized possibility. It could 
not have been so thought-full, however, if it had 
not been first brief, unique, definite, honest, and 
pleasing. 



VII 
CHARACTERIZA TION 

In a powerful story, with excellence of form there 
will be found blended excellence of characterization. 
It is, nevertheless, the restricted form of the Short- 
story which makes the task of characterization 
especially difficult. The means of drawing char- 
acter in the novel and in the Short-story are essen- 
tially the same. The only difference is that, while 
the novel is unrestricted, the Short-story requires 
an intensive application of methods. While in 
the novel one may listen at leisure to a recital of 
the hero's characteristics and watch him develop 
through two or three hundred pages, in a multi- 
plication of episodic incident and in crisis after 
crisis; in the Short-story one watches the main 
character in but a single full crisis and sees him 
portrayed in few pages, by a limited amount of 
incident and scant description. The Short-story 
must not devote time and space to non-essentials. 
Characterization should be of the swiftest. A few 
sketch-strokes must be made to do the duty of 
whole pages in a longer narrative. Yet the char- 
acter must be definite, true, and lifelike. From 
the way a character meets the single crisis, one 
should be able to judge how he would act under 



130 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

other circumstances. His measure should be taken, 
so that one may know whether he is a great man 
capable of great things or a little man capable only 
of petty things. By what is said, much that is 
left unsaid may be suggested. The essence, almost, 
of a man's character should be indicated by means 
which seem perhaps no more than the habitual 
expression of that character. Such finesse of char- 
acter drawing seems almost impossible; yet a hand 
has been so painted as instantly and unmistak- 
ably to suggest the person to whom it belongs. So, 
also, a Short-story may suggest a character in its 
entirety. 

Such characterization will bring all one's powers 
of imagination, of observation, of reflection, of 
sympathy, of insight, into play. It will demand 
a sure technique, a deft touch, a discriminating 
knowledge. A character is not simply a record of 
personal appearance and external peculiarities. It 
does not consist in a loud voice, an affected accent, 
a stiff manner, an unusual gesture, a modest glance, 
or a genteel appearance. All of these things indi- 
cate character; they are the outward expressions 
of the real man, but they are not the real man. A 
character represents a whole man. It consists of 
the sum of a man's habits, physical, mental, and 
spiritual. One wishes to know how a man thinks, 
what are his thoughts, how he acts, how he speaks, 
what are his prejudices, his joys, his fears, his hopes, 
his successes, his failures, his loves, his hates, his 
disappointments, his capabilities, his crowning ambi- 



CHARACTERIZATION 131 

tions. Such things may be hidden to the casual 
observer. They make up a man's personality, — 
something too subtle for analysis. They may fail 
to be observed in one's best friend or to disclose 
themselves to oneself. Yet they are there for good 
or for evil, making one man into a murderer, another 
into a saint. Stress of emotion, or a sudden change 
of fortune, may reveal a trait which has been for 
years unsuspected. So many are the variations 
and shadings of personality that no one individual 
will appeal in the same way to two persons. At one 
time a person may seem even-tempered and gentle, 
at another, quick-tempered and stern. The char- 
acterizer has, therefore, a difficult task. He must 
combine all that he feels a character to be into one 
suggestive whole. He must know a character so 
thoroughly that he will reveal not the man's external 
characteristics, but his personality. He must under- 
stand human nature and reflect it with power and 
much sympathy. 

Although it is impossible for a writer to know any 
one individual perfectly, he may know the character 
he chooses to portray in a story. The writer may 
thus reconcile the warring elements of character, 
make the inconsistent seem consistent, and the 
imperfect seem perfect. The character which he 
makes will not be a portrait 1 reproducing the exact 

1 "'Later on,' said [de Maupassant], 'when M. Dumas asks 
me where I found my woman's face, it will be amusing to tell 
him, In a shrine at Notre Dame des Doms, of Avignon. ... I 
confess I have not found in that figure all I want for my type 
of a woman. Still, I saw in that expression of face the uncut 



132 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

lines of an actual individual; it may be a composite 
of the characteristics of many individuals, all bound 
together by one dominating trait. The actual facts 
may be culled by observation from life, but the 
character will be shaped by the broodings of imag- 
ination. "The character created is not a thing 
of shreds and patches. It is a new conception." l 
No amount of observing and arbitrary piecing to- 
gether will make a character worthy of the name. 
In its making there must enter a vast deal of imagina- 
tive insight which will recreate and make a character 
actually live for a reader. 2 Because a character is 

diamond I have to polish. I perceived some artistic details 
which will be of use for carving my subject, that I hope to make 
very striking, as near perfection as possible. In my Angelus 
I intend to give all the power of expression of which I am ca- 
pable; every detail will be cared for minutely without tiring the 
reader. I feel very well-disposed to write this book, the subject 
of which I possess completely, and which I have conceived with 
surprising facility. It will be the crowning piece of my literary 
career; I am convinced its qualities will awaken such enthusiasm 
in the artistic reader that he will ask himself if he is in presence 
of reality or fiction.'" Recollections of Guy de Maupassant. 
By his valet, Francois. Pp. 287-8. 

1 C. F. Johnson, Elements of Literary Criticism, p. 54. 

2 "It is to be noticed, however, — and here, I suspect what 
Ruskin calls the mystery of the imagination enters, — that this 
process of abstraction, selection, combination, is mostly not a 
conscious one. The wholes, though they must doubtless be 
formed of elements gathered in our experience, seem to spring 
into existence spontaneously. The poet does not laboriously 
piece together out of his treasured experience the creatures of 
his imagination; they come to him. The elements of which 
they are made seem to unite according to some laws of spontane- 
ous combination not entirely under the control of the will." 
G. T. Winchester, Principles of Literary Criticism, p. 121. 



CHARACTERIZATION 133 

the idealized and concrete expression of what one 
understands of human nature, it may live for one 
as no actual character may. It may be like no living 
human being, yet like all human beings. 

There is much, naturally, that a man shares with 
others of his own type or class, and much that be- 
longs to him individually. His character is com- 
plex. He is, to a greater or less extent, the product 
of external forces, the resultant of his own will, and 
the expression of individual peculiarities. He is all 
of these variously combined. In so far as he is the 
product of external forces he may be called typical. 
The reason is clear: Etymologically, a type is some- 
thing "struck out"; acted upon, therefore, by an 
external force. When a great number of things are 
acted upon by the same external force, they all bear 
the same stamp; they are typical. Likewise, when 
a great number of persons are acted upon similarly 
by the same external force, they are shaped accord- 
ing to the same pattern; they, too, are typical. 
Every variation in external forces will cause a new 
type; and the variations may be many. These 
forces thus acting on a great number of people in 
the same way one may call environment. The 
nature of the soil, the contour of the land, the climate, 
the location beside forest, sea, lake, or river, all 
affect the people who live continuously in a certain 
region. Heredity and occupation, too, are forms 
of environment. Kentucky is an environment; 
so is prison; so are home training and inherited 
principles ; so is the profession of law. Mr. Theobald 



134 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

is typical of the artist dreamer; Adoniram Penn, of 
the stern New Englander. Miss Florence in They 
sings "as the blind sing — from the soul." The 
typical, though always present in character, is not 
always necessary to characterization; for the repre- 
sentative may express itself in another way. 

People may be grouped according to certain class 
characteristics which are the resultant not of com- 
mon external forces, but of common habitual choices 
or acts of will. When a man makes a choice which 
will advance his own individual interests, even at 
the expense of other persons, he is said to be selfish; 
when he is possessed with a desire to rise above his 
present self and his present surroundings, to become 
more important than he is, he is called ambitious; 
when he does a thing that is hard, because he feels 
that it is a right thing, he is courageous. When he 
habitually makes such a choice, he becomes a selfish, 
an ambitious, a brave man, and is classed along with 
others who are actuated by a like habitual motive. 
The characteristic which he has thus in common with 
a class may be called generic. The generic differs 
from the typical in that it is produced not by one 
common external force acting on all persons alike, 
but by the workings of innumerable like forces within 
the characters themselves. Phillips Brooks and 
Senator Lodge may both be called typical of New 
England, but their likeness goes no farther. Their 
generic qualities are different. One might conceive 
an ambitious New Englander, an idealistic New 
Englander, a truthful New Englander, a cowardly 



CHARACTERIZATION 135 

New Englander, a shiftless New Englander. Yet 
one knows that these attributes and a hundred 
others are not limited to any one environment. 
One must realize, therefore, the qualities that go to 
make a character typical, as separate from those 
which go to make him generic. In Mrs. Knollys 
there is little, if any, of the typical and much of the 
generic. 

One may say, however, that one's environment 
is frequently a matter of individual choice. One 
chooses law as a profession, or California as an 
environment. Yet a man is not brave because he 
performs a single brave deed. A habit becomes 
fixed only after an act has been repeated again and 
again. Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan were 
ambitious, yet ambition was not necessarily with 
them a constant aim. They were habitually ad- 
venturers, become such by repeated acts of choice. 
One may decide to be a bricklayer, yet one does not 
repeat the decision with every new job. Nor does a 
lawyer reiterate his intention of being a lawyer 
every time he gains a new client. Choice, in such a 
case, is final and decisive, and it establishes a perma- 
nent environment or external mold of character. A 
farmer is still a farmer long after he has ceased from 
active toil. Thus the typical and generic, though 
closely related, are separate. Of course, there are 
at times Mendings and overlappings. Mr. Oak- 
hurst is in some ways typical of the professional 
gambler, yet his gambling is the result of many 
separate acts of will. The typical thus seems to 



136 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

blend with the generic. Environment, however, 
may influence choice and to the extent that it 
does, the typical will assimilate the generic. A 
drunkard may be such partly because of environ- 
ment, partly because many repeated choices have 
with him become a habit. It is home training 
and early environment that have much to do in 
developing the state of Markheim's conscience. 
The variations, the combinations, and the blendings 
of the typical and generic are almost unlimited. 
To them, however, must be added yet a third 
element of character. 

In order to be interesting, a character must be 
shown to possess individual as well as representative 
qualities. Every person has characteristics which 
differentiate him from every other person of the 
same type or class. 1 His individual eccentricities 
are his, irrespective of any external shaping force or 
of any habit of will. By means of them a character 
is made to seem interesting, lifelike, and convincing. 
Individual characteristics are different in every 
person: generic characteristics, though resulting 
from individual choice, are common to a class. It 
is generic for a man to be ambitious; it is individual 
for John Flemming in Marjorie Daw to throw books 
at his servant Watkins. Lack of individuality of 
characterization results in flatness. Love stories 
seem especially liable to this defect. Their charac- 

1 Cf. Diana's remark, "Women are women, and I am a woman: 
but I am I, and unlike them." George Meredith, Diana of the 
Crossways, Boxhill Edition, p, 218. 



CHARACTERIZATION 137 

ters are sure to be "popular" and "handsome"; 
they do the customary things and make the cus- 
tomary remarks, — at least, the remarks commonly 
supposed to be customary. They are simply lovers, 
and on that account are supposed to be interesting. 
In fiction, the proverb that "all the world loves a 
lover" is not necessarily true. Unless the lover is 
individual or is involved in unique circumstances, 
he is simply one of a large class and inspires little 
more interest than does a toy soldier moved by 
cleverly arranged springs. Marks of individuality 
should always be definite, yet not exaggerated. An 
individual is not necessarily abnormal or queer. 
It is not necessary continually to call attention to 
peculiarities. No one quality will make a character 
individual. Individuality is rather the breath of 
personality. It may be as definite as the fragrance 
of a rose and as subtly manifested as the variation in 
the light-tones of successive days. 

Individuality, as expressive of a whole personality, 
is many-sided, and unites many contrasting elements 
of character. Adequately to depict it, is not to 
emphasize it in one particular alone, but to appreciate 
its varying lights and shades and to blend these in 
one harmonious whole. To show individuality by 
some external mark, perhaps a manner of laughing, 
or a nervous winking of the eyes, is to make a charac- 
ter of wrong proportions; not a true character, but 
an oddity. Character may be at once fully rounded 
and individual. Sarah Penn is a woman capable 
of making her husband listen when he does not wish 



138 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

to hear her, capable of drawing information from her 
son when he would rather profess ignorance of this 
knowledge. She is undaunted and somewhat an- 
gered by the attempted interference of the minister. 
Yet at the last of her talk with her husband she 
assumes almost a beseeching attitude. She is a 
careful housekeeper, a faithful wife, and a mother 
solicitous for her children. At the last, she speaks 
to her husband almost tenderly. Commanding, 
capable, faithful, tender, she is withal a resolute 
woman. Markheim appears with "pity, horror, 
resolve, terror, fascination, and physical repulsion" 
written on his face and manifest in his actions. 
Confronted by his sin, he says of himself, "Evil and 
good run strong in me, haling me both ways. I do 
not love the one thing, I love all. I can conceive 
great deeds, renunciations, martyrdoms; and though 
I be fallen to such a crime as murder, pity is no 
stranger to my thoughts. I pity the poor; who 
knows their trials better than myself? I pity and 
help them; I prize love, I love honest laughter; 
there is no good thing nor true thing on earth but 
I love it from my heart. And are my vices only to 
direct my life and my virtues to lie without effect, 
like some passive lumber of the mind? Not so; 
good, also, is a spring of acts." 

Variations are evident between one character 
and another; changes occur, likewise, from time 
to time in the same character. Development or 
deterioration may take place. One expects to see 
such changes appearing in a novel, whose province 



CHARACTERIZATION 139 

may be the whole of a life. Within the briefer 
limits of the Short-story, however, it would seem 
that only the stationary, the unchanged character 
might with success be handled. 1 The stationary 
character is more easily treated than the progressive. 
The portrayal of character change is, nevertheless, a 
legitimate field for the Short-story. If a change 
is sudden, one may grasp the moment of its occur- 
rence as Stevenson has done in Markheim. Less 
than an hour probably elapsed between Markheim's 
killing of the dealer and the time when he gave 
himself up. Yet in this time Markheim passed his 
life in review and condemned it. Character de- 
velopment, however, generally takes place more 
gradually. *In The Outcasts of Poker Flat, it takes 
six days to bring out the latent good of the charac- 
ters. During this time of privation and danger the 
outcasts manifest what would otherwise have re- 
mained unsuspected; their characters seem, as it 
were, to unfold. It is not actual growth that takes 
place; it is, nevertheless, real development. They 
are stronger men and women than they were when 
they left Poker Flat. Mrs. Knollys is less notice- 
ably progressive. The change in her character is a 
maturing of what has been already seen; it is the 
change from a green to a fully ripened purple grape. 

1 By development of character in a story one may mean two 
different things. One may refer to the actual change which 
takes place in a character; one may mean, on the other hand, 
the change in the reader's conception of a character from start 
to finish. Of course, one's idea of character, however, may or 
may not develop within the limits of the story. 



140 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

It, too, is a real development. Thus a Short-story 
may not represent the development of a complete 
character, but it may show fully the development 
of character in one respect. 

A character, whether stationary or progressive, is 
best portrayed by what he says and does in the main 
story-incident. No amount of exposition or descrip- 
tion will make us realize a character as does the 
main incident in which he is involved. In it, the 
whole man may be displayed. Typical, generic, 
and individual characteristics appear. The generic 
which constitutes the motive for action will there 
be made to reach its strongest expression. Minor 
incidents may show a character consistent; the 
main incident will persuade one that a story friend 
is trustworthy or courageous. To persuade in a 
story is, however, somewhat different from persuad- 
ing by force of logic in a cold, scientific treatise. 
In the ordinary affairs of life, in business, and in 
science, a man demands proof. He knows well 
that the strongly consistent act is not the defining 
act. When he reads a story, however, he adopts a 
different attitude; his reason is subordinated to his 
imagination. He is then usually satisfied to judge 
of character by inference from the strongly con- 
sistent act. In his estimate of friends, he acts 
similarly. Rarely does he see a friend undergo a 
defining test of character. Because he has talked 
with him and watched him, because he has found 
him consistent in all that he knows of him, he accepts 
him as a friend, never doubting. In a story, further- 



CHARACTERIZATION 141 

more, he trusts the writer's conception of a man, 
for the writer knew the character more intimately 
than the reader knows him. If the writer intended 
the character as such a man, the reader usually asks 
no further guaranty. 

A defining test of a character trait, although 
perhaps not always essential, is desirable, — es- 
pecially in the character story. John Oakhurst is 
defined, for he met the supreme test ol his acceptance 
of chance. Markheim, also, is defined, for he did 
the thing that was hardest for him to do. Mr. 
Theobald is defined, for he failed in his masterpiece. 
Is Mrs. Knollys? Is she not the merely consistent 
character? Nothing depended on her hopefulness. 
Charles Knollys would have been found; the old 
guide would have remembered the accident and 
would have notified Mrs. Knollys. Yet Mrs. Knollys 
is, first of all, a story of character. Unique circum- 
stances and well-developed atmosphere do much, 
however, towards intensifying the single impression 
and making the story powerful. Exact definition 
of a character trait occurs, though less frequently, 
in stories of action and atmosphere. In reading 
The Masque of the Red Death, one's interest is so 
completely absorbed by the description of the ball 
that one thinks scarcely at all of Prince Prospero. 
He is not strongly drawn, but he is definitely char- 
acterized as a selfishly proud man. Selfish pride 
governed every act. Such was his motive in retiring 
with his friends into his castellated abbey; such, 
in providing the magnificent entertainment for his 



142 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

guests when others were suffering and dying; such 
again was his motive in resenting the intrusion of 
the horribly masked guest. Malicious revengeful- 
ness on the part of the main character of The Cask 
of Amontillado is clearly defined. Not only was his 
act premeditated, but the motive seems also to have 
been common in his family. A man capable of such 
a deed would be capable, also, of much lesser acts 
of revenge. In a story, what a man does or says 
habitually or premeditatively without influence of 
reward or punishment indicates his character. If, 
however, the main character can be shown as acting 
consistently in spite of the certainty of reward or 
punishment, the intensity of a characteristic may be 
measured. The greater the intensity of the charac- 
teristic as displayed, the more powerful will be the 
story. 

Thus far, what has been said has applied almost 
wholly to the main character, as shown in the main 
story-incident. There are, however, lesser means 
of characterizing both the main and the minor 
characters. These means may be either direct or 
indirect. Of the two, the direct is much the easier 
and generally much the less effective. It tells facts 
and informs the reader once and for all what he is 
expected to believe about a character. It may be 
purely expository, it may be descriptive, it may be 
a combination, partly expository, partly descriptive. 
Such characterization often fails because it is too 
detailed. The writer has perhaps sought to gain 
definiteness by comprehensiveness. He succeeds in 



CHARACTERIZATION 143 

boring the reader by a mass of meaningless details. 
Imagination is given little or no chance. The pic- 
ture is often but a blur in which one can distinguish 
scarcely anything and from which a reader wearily 
turns away. Clearness demands only that the 
essentials of a character be brought into focus. It 
is possible to arrange in the mind only a few details 
at once. Beyond these all others are useless, or 
worse than useless ; for they fail to further the single 
impression of a story. A character does not con- 
sist of details; it is a whole; it is not a bundle of 
facts to be presented to the reader, but an impres- 
sion to be made on him. One is not conscious, 
during one's reading, of all the structural means 
whereby a story produces its effect; one is not 
aware of all the details that make up a character. 
Where details are given, one grasps not a host of 
disconnected items, but just those few which seem 
to have peculiar meaning. Unconsciously one fixes 
upon these, • and around them shapes the whole in 
imagination. 1 They are the part which one has 
spiritually discerned; they produce a harmonized 
impression; they enable one to feel a character, 
not as a specimen, but as a living being. 

1 " . . . but what may be called the incompleteness of imagi- 
native vision does unquestionably add to its charm. We have 
dropped out of our picture all irrelevant or unpleasing details; our 
attention is concentrated upon those few features that gave us the 
powerful and characteristic impression, and all the rest are lost 
in a dim and hazy background. The whole picture is thus 
toned into harmony with its prevailing sentiment." C. T. 
Winchester, The Principles of Literary Criticism, p. 133. 



144 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

Any analysis of thoughts and feelings is subject 
to similar objection, unless a character can be repre- 
sented as actually saying these things, when the 
characterization becomes indirect. Occasionally, it 
is useful to show the way a man thinks. One enjoys, 
in Mrs. Knollys, hearing about the scientist's mental 
processes: 

"He had been wondering what the fish had been 
going to do in that particular gallery, and secretly 
doubting whether it had known its own mind, and 
gone thither with the full knowledge and permission 
of its maternal relative. Indeed, the good Doctor 
would probably have ascribed its presence to the 
malicious and personal causation of the devil, but 
that the one point on which he and Spluthner were 
agreed was the ignoring of unscientific hypotheses. 
The Doctor's objections to the devil were none the 
less strenuous for being purely scientific." 

If long continued, however, the recital of one's 
ramblings of thought grows exceedingly wearisome. 
Unless the reader is in perfect sympathy with a 
character, an analysis seems like a dry record of 
events. If the situation is intense, the thinking 
may also be intense and concentrated on one idea. 
A few sentences of such analysis may then be of 
assistance in showing a character. 

Direct characterization should, whenever possible, 
be presented gradually, for the obvious reason that 
exposition and description of any length interrupt 
a narrative, and thus interfere with the rapid move- 




CHARACTERIZATION 145 

ment of a story. A few words of description or of 
exposition here and there throughout a story will 
not thus interfere at all, and by developing one's 
idea of character little by little may produce an 
illusion of reality. One may learn to know a char- 
acter as one knows a friend; each new sight will 
add to the conception. For several paragraphs in 
Markheim there is no direct characterization of the 
dealer. Then one is told that "... the little pale, 
round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tiptoe, 
looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and 
nodding his head with every mark of disbelief." 
Four paragraphs later, one is told of his "dry and 
biting voice." Conversation continues for some 
time before one sees his "thin blond hair falling 
over his eyes." After the murder, we hear that his 
clothes were poor and miserly and that the body 
looked "strangely meaner than in life." Sarah 
Penn is characterized directly near the beginning of 
The Revolt of Mother in a paragraph partly descrip- 
tive, partly expository. Later, a paragraph is de- 
voted to describing her as a model housekeeper. 
This paragraph seems almost to interrupt the 
narrative. In another place she is mentioned as 
having "a patient and steadfast soul." Again it 
is said, "She stood in the door like a queen' she held 
her head as if it bore a crown; there was that patience 
that makes authority royal in her voice." At the 
time of the minister's call, "The saintly expression 
of her face remained fixed, but there was an angry 
flush over it." Such is the gradual method of 



146 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

direct delineation. The method of a long unbroken 
description may, of course, be used, but with less 
certainty of effectiveness. If it is used, the character 
may be most naturally presented near the beginning, 
before the narrative is well under way, and before 
the reader has himself shaped the character in his 
imagination. 

Effectiveness in direct characterization may be 
secured, too, if the statements in regard to a char- 
acter, instead of being expressed by the writer, 
can be put into the mouth of a narrator-character 
or of some character of a dialogue. A narrative 
setting may thus be given which will go far to bridge 
over any apparent break. Mr. Theobald is seen 
through the eyes of the narrator-character, and 
again through those of Mrs. Coventry and of the 
Signora Serafma. Jimmy Wells, first described by 
the writer as a typical guardian of the peace, is later 
characterized by Bob as a friend. Miss Florence 
is directly described by the narrator-character of 
They: 

"The garden door — of heavy oak sunk deep in 
the thickness of the wall — opened. A woman in 
a big garden-hat set her foot slowly on the hollowed 
stone step and as slowly walked across the turf. I 
was forming some sort of apology when she lifted 
up her head and I saw that she was blind." 

Later he says, "She stood looking at me with open 
blue eyes in which no sight lay, and I saw for the 
first time that she was beautiful." Delineated thus 



CHARACTERIZATION 147 

in relation to the narrator, she seems not like a 
wooden figure set up for us to look at, but a living 
human being. The description is a part of the 
narrative itself. 

Indirect characterization, although perhaps more 
difficult than the direct, is also, when skilfully 
used, more effective. One may learn something of 
a character from direct statements about him; one 
judges far more by inference from his speech and 
his actions. One compares him with other men, 
notices the attitude he inspires in them, watches 
his dealings with them, listens to what he says to 
them. The indirect is thus the illustrative method; 
it is the expression of fact by concrete examples. 
Its manner is narrative. Instead of benumbing his 
imagination, it encourages the reader to form his 
own estimate of a character. A policeman may be 
said to be a typical "guardian of the peace," but 
he is more accurately characterized by his act in 
turning over a criminal, his one-time friend, to jus- 
tice. It may be said that a woman is a model 
housekeeper. One prefers, however, to watch her 
at work in her house. The act is more convincing 
than the fact statement. 

It is nearly always true, however, that in the 
Short-story both methods are used, the one to 
supplement the other. One may tell of the play of 
a man's emotions or of his dominant motive, and 
then illustrate them in speech and action. One 
may say that "Mrs. Knollys was hopeful and then 
show her exemplifying this hopefulness through 



148 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

many years of waiting. One may call John Oak- 
hurst a gambler, calm and clear-headed, then show 
him standing erect while the other outcasts are 
under the influence of liquor, or, after the theft 
of the mules, refusing to waken the sleepers. "The 
big, simple-hearted guides" express their sympathy 
for Mrs. Knollys by their willingness, in a pretended 
attempt to find her Charles, to descend into the 
crevasse. There may thus be a proposition and its 
demonstration. The indirect method may extend 
even to the direct, for even from a direct statement 
one may draw inferences. External characteristics, 
thus, may not simply assist vividness of visualiza- 
tion; they may contribute also to the expression of 
the intimate personality of a character. By har- 
monizing external characteristics and character, 
an inference from a direct, may be made to parallel 
an inference from an indirect, statement. Charac- 
terization may thus gain additional strength. 

Although the methods are different, the materials 
of direct and indirect characterization are much 
the same. Of course, some materials lend them- 
selves more naturally to one treatment, some to 
the other. Action lends itself almost exclusively 
to the indirect handling. It is true that in The 
Cask of Amontillado, Montresor begins with the 
statement that his story is to be of an act of revenge, 
premeditated and perpetrated under a guise of 
friendship. He brands himself and his act at the 
beginning. Usually, however, an action is allowed 
to be its own comment on character. Notice one 



CHARACTERIZATION 149 

of the details of revenge. In assuming a guise of 
friendship, Montresor keeps continually urging For- 
tunato to go back to avoid risk to his health from 
the dampness of the vaults with their nitre-encrusted 
walls. By such feigning, he disarms any suspicion 
that might have arisen in the mind of his victim. 
Then finally, after he has chained Fortunato securely 
in the niche, he turns again to say: 

"Pass your hand over the wall; you cannot help 
feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once 
more let me implore you to return. No? Then I 
must positively leave you." 

All the cruelty and vengeful^ess of Montresor's 
nature are there suddenly revealed. One is thus 
constantly doing things that reveal character. In 
refusing himself to arrest his one-time friend, Jimmy 
Wells reveals a certain tenderness. But for the 
evidence of the milk tallies of the interview with 
Turpin in They, one might almost have ques- 
tioned Miss Florence's reality. She is shown to be 
strict in business and aware even of the tricks of 
her tenant. 

Another means of characterization is to show the 
effect that one character has upon another. One 
person may inspire fear, or admiration, or confidence, 
or suspicion, or disgust, in another person. It is 
comparatively easy to state that one person im- 
pressed another in a certain definite way. "Even 
the phlegmatic driver of their Einspanner looked 
back out of the corner of his eye at the schone 



150 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

Engldnderin and compared her mentally with the 
far-famed beauty of the Konigsee." It is said, 
too, that Mrs. Knollys felt "almost like confiding" 
in the German scientist, for he was "the oldest 
gentleman she had seen." These, however, are at 
best merely direct statements. It is a far more 
difficult task to show an effect as produced, and 
yet not seem to drag into the story unnecessary 
incident. Notice how skilfully Stevenson has shown 
the suspicion that the curio dealer feels of Mark- 
heim. When Markheim winks and turns aside from 
the candle, thrust suddenly before his eyes, the 
dealer's suspicions are evidently increased. He 
remarks "a certain manner" in his customer. He 
jumps back when he is suddenly confronted by 
the hand-mirror. The reader, too, is made sus- 
picious, and is prepared for what is to follow. The 
device is here obviously effective. 

Personal appearance is of comparatively slight 
value for characterization in the Short-story. There 
is no time for elaborate description of how a man 
appeared or of what he wore. Generally, only a 
few words are given. Even these may frequently 
be omitted without much detriment to a story. 
Only such details of personal appearance are used 
as serve in some definite way to further one's idea 
of a character. Daniel Dravot is known chiefly by a 
flaming red beard and Peachey Carnehan by his "eye- 
brows that meet over the nose in an inch-broad black 
band." Both men, too, were large. Aside from these 
statements, however, little else is said of the personal 



CHARACTERIZATION 151 

appearance of the adventurers. The descriptions, 
such as they are, serve as tags of identification and 
to mark these men as in some way extraordinary. 
Notice the description of "Silky" Bob: 

"The man in the doorway struck a match and lit 
his cigar. The light showed a pale, square-framed 
face with keen eyes, and a little white scar near 
his right eyebrow. His scarfpin was a large 
diamond, oddly set." 

The description is short, but careful. Its purpose 
is, first, to serve as a basis of later identification. 
It fits exactly, however, the character of Bob, the 
smooth criminal. It is a hard face which arouses 
one's instinctive suspicion. One wonders immedi- 
ately about the cause of the little white scar. 

Mr. Theobald, when first seen by moonlight, 
appears merely an artist with an artist's hair and 
costume. Later, seen by daylight, he is described 
in more detail. He is older than he first seemed: 

"His velvet coat was threadbare, and his short 
slouched hat, of an antique pattern, revealed a 
rustiness which marked it an 'original,' and not one 
of the picturesque reproductions which artists of 
his craft affect. His eye was mild and heavy, and 
his expression singularly gentle and acquiescent; 
the more so for a certain pallid leanness of visage 
which I hardly knew whether to refer to the con- 
suming fire of genius or to a meagre diet." 

There is not an item of this description but adds 



152 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

to the effect of the whole story or deepens one's im- 
pression of the artist. Every detail harmonizes with 
the character as a whole. More use is here made 
of costume than is general. The costume, here, 
however, is uniquely expressive of the man. Other- 
wise it would have been but lumber, detracting 
from the effect of the whole. Costume and personal 
appearance that are not uniquely characteristic of 
an individual are, in the Short-story, worse than 
useless. 

Not only personal appearance, but names are 
suggestive of character. They should, therefore, 
be chosen with care. Poe wrote fantastic stories, 
and he fitted his characters with fantastic names. 
In many of his stories he seems to show a fondness 
for the liquids and for the long vowels, for they 
harmonized with his effects. Eleonora, Ligeia, 
Morella, Madeline, are some of his women. His 
men are not so unusual. Still, one notices Prince 
Prospero, Fortunato, and Montresor. No one cares 
to imitate his names. They would not suit our 
stories nowadays. Yet one may well follow his 
example in fitting a name to a character. Mary, 
Sarah, Elizabeth, and Kate are much used for 
simple home-loving women. Writers of love stories 
seem to have a fondness for Marjorie and Dorothy. 
Similar differences are noticeable in the names 
applied to men in stories. John and James, Robert 
and William, with the corresponding Jim and Bob 
and Bill are frequent for the ordinary man, while 
characters in any sense unusual have less common 



CHARACTERIZATION 153 

names. There is no rule. Every person knows 
that a wrong name will jar, and every person has 
a feeling for names appropriate to this or that char- 
acter. Usually such a feeling is a safe guide. 

It is useful sometimes to tell of a character's 
accomplishments. One may judge him not only 
by what one sees him doing, but also by what he 
has done. By the nature of an accomplishment, 
one may learn something of a man's innate aptitudes; 
by the difficulty of the task and by his failure or 
success in it, something of his strength. Dravot 
introduces himself and Carnehan thus: 

"Now, Sir, let me introduce to you Brother 
Peachey Carnehan, — that's him, — and Brother 
Daniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about 
our professions the better, for we have been most 
things in our time. Soldier, sailor, compositor, 
photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, and 
correspondents of the Backwoodsman when we 
thought the paper wanted one." 

One has already heard something of Carnehan's 
ability as pretended correspondent of the Back- 
woodsman; one is to learn later of Dravot's success- 
ful mimicry of a mad priest. The men are clearly 
eager for adventure and capable of adapting them- 
selves to any sort of life. To see them later "crowned 
kings of Kafiristan" is no greater surprise than to 
know that they were once proof-readers and street- 
preachers. 

To characterize a man by his accomplishments is 



154 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

more rarely done than to characterize him by his 
environment. A man may be placed in an environ- 
ment which serves simply as a stage setting for 
his action. As such, it may influence him and leave 
its mark upon him, but it is in no sense expressive 
of his character. For environment in its broad 
sense, a man is not responsible; for environment 
in its narrower, more restricted sense, a man may 
be responsible. Thus, a person is to a certain 
extent judged by the room he lives in, by the books 
he has around him, by the magazines he has on his 
table, by the pictures on his walls. In mentioning 
with contempt Mrs. Coventry's appreciation of 
art, Mr. Theobald speaks of "that horrible men- 
dacious little parlor of hers, with its trumpery 
Peruginos." A woman, too, may be judged by 
the scoured brilliancy of her pots and pans, and by 
the general neatness of her house. One knows 
something of Prince Prospero when one has noticed 
the gorgeous furnishings and hangings of his apart- 
ments. One knows something of Adoniram Penn 
from the fact that he would have two barns for his 
animals and for his crops, and would live himself 
in a small, uncomfortable house. Miss Florence 
arranged her rooms so that they would be attractive 
to children. There was always a fire in her hearth. 
In many slight ways, perhaps by a sentence here 
and there, characteristic environment may be 
indicated. 

Yet perhaps the most common and most impor- 
tant material of characterization is speech. A man 



CHARACTERIZATION 



155 



is judged by what he says and by his manner of 
saying it. Some men are fluent, and their words 
hurry forth in a torrent; others are reserved, and 
find difficulty in speaking. Some speak in affected 
language; others use simple and natural words. 
Some speak with every semblance of frankness; 
others as if they were disguising themselves or their 
thoughts. Some are calm and deliberate, others 
are excitable. All these differences in manner show 
differences in character. Notice the German scien- 
tist's slow and formal discourse. His mind is bent 
on science. Notice Mr. Theobald's enthusiastic 
discourses on the beautiful and the true. In all 
speech, however, manner and content are so inter- 
mingled that one need not distinguish them in their 
effect upon characterization. The contrast between 
Carnehan and Dravot expresses character, alike 
by its manner of expression and by its content. 
Each of the men displays himself frequently in 
characteristic speech. Carnehan when advised "not 
to run the Central India States as the corre- 
spondent of the Backwoodsman," because "there 
is a real one knocking about," answers: 

"Thank you, and when will the swine be gone? 
I can't starve because he's ruining my work. I 
wanted to get hold of the Degumber Rajah down 
here about his father's widow, and give him a 
jump." 

Notice, too, the following speech of Mr. Theobald 
when asked whether he had been very productive: 



156 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

"'Not in the vulgar sense!' he said, at last. 'I 
have chosen never to manifest myself by imperfec- 
tion. The good in every performance I have reab- 
sorbed into the generative force of new creations; 
the bad — there's always plenty of that — I have 
religiously destroyed. I may say, with some satis- 
faction, that I have not added a mite to the 
rubbish of the world. As a proof of my conscien- 
tiousness,' — and he stopped short, and eyed me 
with extraordinary candor, as if the proof were to 
be overwhelming — 'I've never sold a picture! "At 
least no merchant traffics in my heart!" Do you 
remember the line in Browning? My little studio 
has never been profaned by superficial, feverish, 
mercenary work. It's a temple of labor, but of 
leisure! Art is long. If we work for ourselves, of 
course, we must hurry. If we work for her, we 
must often pause. She can wait.' " 

He is a dreamer, pure and simple. 

The speech of characters is generally in the form 
of conversation. However effective it may be, 
good conversation is exceedingly difficult to write. 
The first requirement of good dialogue is that it 
should seem easy, natural, and spontaneous. It 
should not be stilted and formal, as if the charac- 
ters were talking out of a book. It should not be 
ornate. It should not go to the other extreme and 
be filled with unnecessary slang and colloquialisms. 
It should, so far as is possible, be made to resemble 
actual conversation. The second requirement of 



CHARACTERIZATION 157 

good dialogue is that it should be interesting of itself. 
It should have a point. The policeman and Bob 
might have talked about the weather and all sorts 
of commonplaces, yet they did not. Unless con- 
versation is of some value in furthering progress, the 
story will be better without it. Ordinary conversa- 
tion is full of irrelevancies. These must not appear 
in a story. If conversation is to be really interest- 
ing to a reader, it should be thoroughly interesting 
to the participants. It is most natural and most 
interesting on occasions of more or less dramatic 
intensity. Yet where there is dramatic intensity, 
care should be taken that there be no violation of 
propriety. Under unusual stress, people do not 
express themselves. Conversation in They is sub- 
ject to frequent pauses. The most natural and 
interesting conversation is that which imitates 
most closely ordinary people in their moments of 
animated discourse. 



VIII 
ATMOSPHERE 

Much that has been said of characterization may 
be applied with equal aptness to the making of 
atmosphere. Every story has a setting of some 
sort, — an environment of time or place or circum- 
stance. Every story has, also, an atmosphere which 
is the vitalizing influence of this environment and 
varies as does the peculiar aspect of the setting. 
This atmosphere is an effect, pervasive as in nature, 
intangible, vague, and elusive. It is always present, 
though not always in equal intensity. Among the 
mountains, atmosphere is rarified; at sea level, it 
is dense. In some stories it is scarcely realizable; 
in others it is an influence strongly felt. It never 
makes itself felt as a distinct sensation, but rather 
as a pervading sense of depression, or of stimulation, 
or of apprehension, or of any of a man's many 
moods. Frequently it is derived from association. 
For many people, the sight of falling leaves causes 
depression. Yet to the eye the sight is undoubtedly 
beautiful, and it becomes depressing only because 
of its associational meaning. A century may have 
an atmosphere, a dominating influence, — so may 
a town; so, too, may a person or a group of persons. 
When the interest of a group of people centers on 
thought and knowledge, there results an intellec- 



ATMOSPHERE 159 

tual atmosphere. Where all their thought is of busi- 
ness success, they create a commercial atmosphere. 
Thus, also, an atmosphere of gaiety or of solemnity 
may be produced. It is impossible to show atmos- 
phere in a story except by indicating the distinc- 
tive and associational elements of setting. 

Atmosphere may have another aspect. While it 
may be expressed by setting, it may also affect 
setting. The sun looks red or yellow, the moon 
yellow or white, according to the medium through 
which one sees them. Hills may look distant or 
near at hand as the condition of the intervening 
atmosphere varies. Sometimes, one can see indi- 
vidual trees along the horizon and the windows of 
houses several miles away; sometimes, the trees 
and houses near one are scarcely distinguishable 
through a fog. At times, too, one may see things 
in clear and sharp definition in one direction, while 
they are veiled in mist or haze in another. Atmos- 
phere may even show things strange and unreal. 
It may subdue sharp outlines, it may distort, it 
may magnify, or it may define. In a story, similar 
effects of atmosphere are utilized to modify or 
intensify impressions of persons and things. 

Atmosphere is all-pervasive. It affects all parts 
of the story alike. It is the medium through which 
we see all the characters, all the events. It colors 
everything as does a red glass through which we 
look out upon a landscape. Even things in natural 
contrast are brought under one influence. Thus, 
all elements subdued and harmonized by one atmos- 



160 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

phere yield finally a single impression. It is in 
strengthening single impression that the chief value 
of atmosphere consists. k 'The consciousness of the 
presence of the spirits of little children" is the single 
impression of They. The atmosphere is such that 
this impression is possible. It is of unreality and 
mystery, full of shadows where spirits may hide 
at will, just out of reach. In Mrs. Knotty s, an 
atmosphere of low but persistent emotional tension 
brings out the beauty of a triumphant hope. The 
scientist offers a hope. Yet its realization depends 
upon the certain but almost imperceptible motion 
of a glacier, dispassionate, unrelenting. Through 
forty-five years this inevitable tension lasts. Only 
as one waits for the time to pass and for the glacier 
to let go its hold can hope be actually triumphant. 

The force of atmosphere in After Twenty Years 
is less immediately evident than it is in the two 
stories just noticed. As nearly as one can express 
it, the single impression seems to be the grip of duty. 
It is fidelity to duty which Jimmy Wells shows when 
we first see him, it is official obligation which leads 
him to turn over his friend to justice. It is, also, 
faithfulness to obligation which brings back the 
criminal Bob to meet an appointment made with his 
friend twenty years before. This single impression 
appears to the best advantage against the back- 
ground-atmosphere of the power of the social order. 
This atmosphere is felt by both characters alike. 
Even Bob, so used to ignoring duty, who, profes- 
sionally, has been butting for many years against 



ATMOSPHERE 161 

the social order, recognizes one of its natural bases 
in fulfilling the promise made to his friend. Here 
the atmosphere actively promotes the growth of 
single impression. The dominant tone of security, 
felt, too, at the beginning, finds echo throughout 
the story in this power of the social order. 

One of the most frequent means of producing 
atmosphere is description. It may, however, be 
easily abused. In the Short-story, description is 
simply a means, not an end in itself. If prolonged 
beyond what is needful, it may defeat its own 
purpose and dissipate the atmosphere. It may, 
too, interfere with narrative progress. Yet it cannot 
be denied that description has large suggestive 
power for atmosphere. One's feelings are altogether 
different in a stretch of virgin forest from what they 
are on a city street. They are likely to be entirely 
different on a bracing day in January from what 
they are on the first wilting day of summer. A 
change in scenic background may quite alter one's 
impression of the course of events. Description, 
however, even as characterization, should be kept 
within bounds of definite purpose. Details may 
be jumbled together. A rubbish heap, rather than 
a picture, results. One should pick out that which 
is uniquely significant, that which will make the 
reader feel about the thing described exactly what 
the writer felt. The writer must have a sense of 
the fitness of things that will enable him to lay 
his finger on just that which will yield the full sug- 
gestion. The swift stroke which calls up a host of 



162 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

suggestions is, in the Short-story, vastly more effect- 
ive than a long, much-detailed description. An 
effective narrative description should be presented 
not to the intellect, but to the imagination. To 
describe, therefore, one needs to be sensitive to the 
appeal of things and to their common associations. 

It would be difficult to find descriptions more 
perfectly adapted to the needs of a story than are 
those in They. It has already been noted that an 
atmosphere of unreality and mystery is needed in 
this story for the full expression of the single 
effect. The description at the beginning — much 
the longest in the story — impresses one with its 
beauty and its compact suggestiveness. The first 
paragraph is especially full of association: 

"One view called me to another — one hill-top 
to its fellow — half across the county; and since 
I could answer at no more trouble than the snapping 
forward of a lever, I let the county flow under my 
wheels. The orchid-studded flats of the East gave 
way to the thyme, ilex, and grey grass of the Downs; 
these, again, to the rich cornland and fig trees of 
the lower coast, where you carry the beat of the tide 
on your left hand for fifteen level miles: and when 
at last, I turned inland, through a huddle of rounded 
hills and woods, I had run myself clean out of my 
known marks. Beyond that precise hamlet which 
stands Godmother to the capital of the United 
States, I found hidden villages where bees, the 
only things awake, boomed in eighty-foot lindens 



ATMOSPHERE 163 

that overhung grey Norman churches, miraculous 
brooks diving under stone bridges built for heavier 
traffic than would ever vex them again; tithe-barns 
larger than their churches, and an old smithy that 
cried out aloud how it had once been a hall of the 
Knights of the Temple. Gipsies I found on a 
common where the gorse, bracken, and heath fought 
it out together up a mile of Roman road; and a 
little further on I disturbed a red fox rolling dog- 
fashion in the naked sunlight." 

It is worth while to examine this description 
somewhat more closely. Its elements crowd one 
upon another. Hints, yet only hints, are thrown 
out to the imagination. One catches but passing 
glimpses of the country as the automobile speeds 
along. There is no stopping here to analyze botani- 
cal specimens. The manifest hurry adds to the 
general lack of certainty. Yet every sentence is 
full of associations. Orchids and fig trees, one asso- 
ciates with the luxuriance of a warm climate. They 
are suggestive here because they are outside the 
pale of everyday experience. Ilexes are bound 
up with the lore of antiquity. The sea is always 
full of silent mystery to the beholder. "Hidden 
villages where bees, the only things awake, boomed 
in eighty-foot lindens over grey Norman churches," 
suggest almost a land of enchantment, where silence 
and memory of the past may reign supreme. Even 
the smithy turns one's thoughts backward. There 
appear gipsies, always mysterious, for they are 



164 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

like the wind of which it is said that "no man 
knoweth whence it cometh or whither it goeth." 
When, after following a mile of Roman road, one 
disturbs a red fox rolling in the naked sunlight, 
one feels fully away from the hard and fast lines 
of routine and free to let the imagination roam at 
will. The wooded hills may close about us, and the 
hazel stuff meet over our heads and we are content, 
not knowing what strange experiences may be just 
beyond. The atmosphere of mystery and unreality 
is here produced by reference to things beyond 
one's ordinary experience, to things belonging to 
a time long past, and to the beauty and serenity of 
nature through which one is rapidly whirled. 

There are other descriptions in They, shorter but 
just as effective. Throughout the story there is 
much indirectness and indistinctness. The woods 
are full of summer noises, the children's voices rise 
in murmurs, the sunlight is chequered. One sees 
"the wayside grasses rising and bowing in sallow 
waves," "the long shade possessing the insolent 
horsemen one by one," and the mirror in the dusky 
hall "distorting afresh the distorted shadows." 
The description which marks the third visit of 
"the man from the other side of the county" 
shows "summer England" turned to "blank grey." 
Yet, while it seems to hold more life, more stir of 
people, and perhaps less of unreality and mystery, 
than does the description at the beginning, it 
holds, also, more gloom. It has a cruel charm — 
an atmospheric background well fitted for a climax 



ATMOSPHERE 165 

where, with understanding, comes, also, anguish 
of spirit. They is a story of atmosphere, and every 
description gives added strength. 

One might, too, notice the descriptions of The 
Masque of the Red Death in their effect on atmosphere. 
The greater part of the story is given over to a 
description of the prince's apartments and to the 
revelings of the masquers. There is little of action, 
little of character, but much of atmosphere. Every 
detail contributes something of the weird and the 
grotesque to the scene. There is luxuriance so 
hypernatural that it affects one with intense gloom 
and an almost ominous disgust. The colors as they 
follow one another, vivid blue, purple, green, orange, 
white, violet, black, seem those of morbidity rather 
than of light and life and health. No natural light 
reaches these rooms, for the windows are all of 
stained glass corresponding in colors to those of the 
rooms. In the black room alone, the panes are 
different — and here they are of red. The actual 
atmosphere of the rooms is thus made to seem un- 
natural. Even the dancers in their fantastic costume 
seem to take hue from their surroundings. More- 
over, what light there is in these rooms must waver 
and flicker, answering to the rising and falling of 
flames in the braziers without. The atmosphere is 
uncanny. Almost anything unnatural and terrify- 
ing might happen amid such surroundings. 

Experiential association invests most facts of 
common life with the power of affecting atmosphere. 
Singly they may do it; a combination, as has just 



/ 



166 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

been shown, may make a description electric with 
atmospheric force. These objects, facts, or events 
may appear simply as momentary effects, or as 
incident. The rapid strokes of a fire alarm make 
one apprehensive. The tolling of a bell depresses, 
the jangling of a gong stimulates, the ringing of 
chimes soothes. These are but single effects. They 
might, however, be expanded into complete emo- 
tional incidents. The striking of the ebony clock 
in The Masque of the Red Death is an incident de- 
scribed in detail. The muffled peal which comes only 
to one within the black room is a mere effect. All 
of a person's moods, whether of seriousness or ex- 
hilaration, may be expressed by incident. Once 
expressed, they contribute to atmosphere, — for 
moods pass easily from one person to another. A 
whole group may be set to laughing simply by 
watching another person laugh. All emotional 
incidents contribute, however indirectly, to at- 
mosphere. They should be designed with care, 
therefore, that they may strengthen the prevailing 
atmosphere. By telling stories of Homeric heroes 
to while away the time, the outcasts of Poker Flat 
encourage one another to a like heroism in an at- 
mosphere of impending disaster. 

For examples of the creation of atmosphere by 
emotional incidents and mood effects, one cannot 
do better than to turn again to They. The shyness 
of the children is insisted upon until they, too, seem 
of a part with the atmosphere. One catches the 
"glint of a blue blouse" among the horsemen and 



ATMOSPHERE 167 

again in the shrubbery. One hears the "tread of 
small cautious feet stealing across the dead leaves," 
and then their rapid retreat. A child clinging to 
the skirt of Miss Florence suddenly runs "into the 
leafage like a rabbit." One sees them "frolicking 
like shadows among the swaying shadows," and at 
the end of a passage one glimpses "the silhouette 
of a child's frock against some darkening window." 
One sees them clearly only when they are out of reach, 
— looking down from some window high above. All 
the while, they seem unreal and mysterious. Yet 
not until one has neared the end of the story does 
one guess that they are more than merely very shy. 
These are all but effects. Listen to this incident: 

"The children had gathered themselves in a 
roundel behind a bramble bush. One sleek head bent 
over something smaller, and the set of the shoulders 
told me that fingers were on lips. They, too, pos- 
sessed some wonderful child's secret. I alone was 
astray there in the broad summer light." 

It is a minor incident, but it is all atmosphere. 
In this story, even the incidents of movement have 
much emotional value. 

In making a natural, thoroughly true atmosphere, 
one will often find use for contrast. Every atmos- 
phere has its blending tones, its almost infinite shades 
of light and darkness, its ever-changing odors. At one 
moment it may seem fairly to sparkle, and the next 
it may relapse to dull though clear transparency. 
One breath may fairly suffocate with its load of dust, 



168 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

while the next may carry the fragrance of lightning- 
splintered pine. The atmosphere of stories, too, is 
often made more effective by the presence of varying 
tones. Every strain must have its times of mo- 
mentary relaxation. Without hope, despair cannot 
be fully appreciated. Gloom must be enlivened by 
gaiety. Shade but makes the brightness brighter. 1 
Suspense is heightened by relief. After the brief 
period of sunshine, the storm clouds seem to gather 
more closely around the outcasts of Poker Flat and 
the snow falls more thickly. The atmosphere of 
impending disaster, temporarily lightened, settles 
again and envelops them. In the midst of music and 
attempted revelry, the awfulness of the Red Death 
strikes more deeply than it otherwise could. 

The value of contrast for atmosphere is well il- 
lustrated in The Cask of Amontillado. The revenge 
occurs during the carnival season. Montresor finds 
Fortunato dressed in motley and wearing the appro- 
priate conical cap and bells. In this man who has 

1 " If the artist introduces every tone into the story he there- 
by gets hold of every tone in the spectator's emotional nature; 
the world of the play is presented from every point of view 
as it works upon the various passions, and the difference this 
makes is the difference between simply looking down upon a 
surface and viewing a solid from all round: the mixture of 
tones, so to speak, makes passion of three dimensions. More- 
over, it brings the world of fiction nearer to the world of 
nature, which has never yet evolved an experience in which 
brightness was dissevered from gloom; half the pleasure of the 
world is wrung out of other's pain; the two jostle in the street, 
house together under every roof, share every stage of life, and 
refuse to be sundered even in the mysteries of death." R. G. 
Moulton, Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, pp. 292-3. 



ATMOSPHERE 169 

entered into the reckless jollity of the carnival season, 
ready to give or to receive a joke with equal good 
grace, Montresor finds an easy victim. Until the 
last, Fortunato remains unsuspecting in the presence 
of that which at another time might have aroused 
his suspicion and occasioned his withdrawal from 
the vaults. In the carnival season, however, he is 
prepared to follow mirth to the end, expecting even 
a semblance of seriousness to turn out a merry jest. 
Thus he is led unaware into the spider's trap. Cruel, 
premeditated revenge and unsuspecting good fellow- 
ship stand facing each other, and the one seems more 
fiendish because it is in the presence of the other. 
Turning now to the last paragraph, one finds these 
words : 

"No answer. I thrust a torch through the remain- 
ing aperture and let it fall within. There came 
forth in return only a jingling of the bells." 

The reader's interest has been bent on the details 
of the revenge. Just as it is completed, one catches 
once more a view of the carnival jollity. Then 
follows the silence of death. The atmosphere of 
utter vindictiveness stands out in its intensity. 

One finds foreshadowing, too, a device sometimes 
of use for atmosphere. By its suggestion it may 
serve to make an atmosphere more appreciable; it 
may be actually contributory. It requires, how- 
ever, no little skill, for the writer must so arrange his 
details that they will constitute a real though veiled 
intimation of the outcome. It may influence one's 



170 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

mood and prepare one for a future event without 
actually revealing its intent. It may appear either 
in description or in incident. In The Outcasts of 
Poker Flat, the storm is foreshadowed by description. 
The air grows strangely chill, the wind moans, the sky 
is ominously clouded. Near the beginning of the 
story, the Duchess in her petulance declared "that 
she would die in the road." As one reads, one 
passes this remark over lightly. In the light of 
later developments, however, it seems a bit of care- 
fully designed foreshadowing. The strongest fore- 
shadowing in the story, however, appears when the 
outcasts join with Piney and The Innocent in singing 
the two-line refrain: 

"I'm proud to live in the service of the Lord, 
And I'm bound to die in His army." 

This incident forms almost an unwitting recognition 
of an atmosphere of impending disaster. As if to 
clinch this impression, the next sentence adds: 

"The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled 
above the miserable group, and the flames of their 
altar leaped heavenward as if in token of the vow." 

One frequently finds stories in which the atmos- 
phere is influenced, in part, at least, by local color, 
— which is the setting forth of the distinctive 
peculiarities of a definite locality or period. There 
are many possible settings for a story which would 
be as fitting for one section of a country as for an- 
other. They are not distinctive. Rainy days or 
sunny skies are much alike wherever they are found. 



ATMOSPHERE 171 

A distant range of hills does not settle the locality of 
a landscape. Only when setting is uniquely peculiar 
to one locality can one speak correctly of local color. 
Such setting can be expressed either in incident or 
in description. It is natural, as a result, that some 
stories should be written with the sole purpose of 
exhibiting local color, while others should use it 
simply as a fitting and picturesque background. 
In either case, it may have a contributory influence 
on atmosphere, to which it is akin much as the 
fragrance of apple blossoms is akin to the air we 
breathe. Local color may so pervade an atmosphere 
that it is felt as a distinct flavor and affects one's 
emotional outlook. In The Madonna of the Future, 
Florence is so displayed in her character of mistress 
of art and of the artistic spirit that one is made 
fairly to breathe an atmosphere of idealism. It is 
this atmosphere which makes Mr. Theobald's failure 
so possible yet so pathetic. Throughout The Man 
Who Would Be King the influence of local color is 
felt strongly, for it is the searching after something 
new, — something that will be in contrast to one's 
everyday experiences, — that is at the basis of the 
adventurous spirit. It is the contrasts that are 
emphasized by the local color in this story. One 
example will suffice. The description is of the 
Native States: 

"They are the dark places of the earth, full of 
unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway and 
the Telegraph on one side, and on the other, the 



172 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

days of Harun-al-Raschid. When I left the train 
I did business with divers Kings, and in eight days 
passed through many changes of life. Sometimes I 
wore dress-clothes and consorted with Princes and 
Politicals, drinking from crystal and eating from 
silver. Sometimes I lay out upon the ground and 
devoured what I could get, from a plate made of a 
flapjack, and drank the running water, and slept 
under the same rug as my servant. It was all in 
the day's work." 

Local color is expressed also in the speech of 
characters, and here it is called dialect. Dialect is 
interesting because of its novelty. In some stories, 
it is made the main point. It is, however, difficult 
to reproduce on paper accurately and suggestively. 
To write it successfully, one needs to have lived long 
enough in a community to have acquired the exact 
accent and manner of speech of the people. Aside 
from its novelty, dialect is of little value in a Short- 
story. It has little meaning for atmosphere. Words, 
to one who is unfamiliar with them, possess little 
connotation. Their quaintness or suggestiveness 
may fail to arouse the sympathy of a stranger. 
Sometimes, naturalness demands that a character 
use a dialect. Yet, usually, the same things ex- 
pressed by the same people in plain English will sug- 
gest vastly more to the ordinary person, and will be 
of more real value for atmosphere. How style is a 
factor in producing atmosphere will be considered 
in the next chapter. 



IX 

STYLE 

The style-qualities of the Short-story are not 
essentially different from those of any other branch 
of prose fiction. Of course, there must be clearness 
and order, but these should not be strangers to any 
style. They spring from clear and orderly thought. 
There must be also concreteness and suggestiveness 
of style ; and these are common to all good narrative. 
There may be present, too, humor, pathos, anima- 
tion, directness, nervousness, simplicity, picturesque- 
ness, naturalness, vividness, or any of the numerous 
other qualities as they are so varyingly named by 
those who gather them into lists. Yet none of these 
are the property of the Short-story exclusively or of 
any other form of prose. The brevity and con- 
densation of the Short-story, however, make it a 
good vehicle for the display of some of these qualities 
in more than their ordinary development. No 
rules can be laid down as to a proper style for the 
Short-story. Every story is a law unto itself, as is 
every poem. An individual creation of the imagina- 
tion, its style will depend on the form, on the subject 
treated, and on the personality of the writer. This 
threefold division is true in all art. Tennyson's 
lyrics are of one sort; Wordsworth's, of another. 



174 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

Chopin's preludes are utterly different from Bach's. 
Corot painted landscape in one way; Ruysdael, in 
another. The best style for a given story is that 
which is the most perfect expression of what the 
writer intended to say and of the impression he 
wished to convey. To attempt to lay down any 
binding rules for Short-story style would be foolish 
and hazardous. Yet there are certain general 
principles upon which even the variations are based, 
principles derived from the essential nature of the 
Short-story as a form of fine art; and these it may be 
well to consider briefly. 

As has been shown, the modern Short-story has a 
rather rigid form; and because of this form it lends 
itself to greater relative perfection than would 
otherwise be possible. It is brief, it is dramatic, it 
makes a single impression which is predominantly 
emotional. Since it is brief, it must be direct; 
since it is dramatic, explanation and analysis will be 
subordinate to speech and action; since it must give 
a single emotional impression, it must be simple and 
intense. Naturally, such results are attained only 
when the workmanship is of the finest at every 
stage of the making. There must be a delicate adap- 
tation of all possible means in securing the requisite 
artistic effect. Not only must plot and structure be 
skilfully wrought, but style, also, should add grace 
and poignancy. It is the finishing which brings out 
the grain, and gives distinction and refinement to 
rougher work. Yet style is never sought for itself 
alone, but only as it is of service in making the story 



STYLE 175 

grip the reader's imagination with the sense of reality 
as a living experience. To this end, language may 
be used in almost infinite variations of word and 
phrase and sentence. The interest of plot should 
be such that one will eagerly await the outcome, 
yet the mere reading should be a joy. Through 
fitting language, the emotional effect may weave 
itself through the story until it subtly pervades the 
spirit of the reader. One finishes a good Short- 
story with regret as well as with satisfaction. Its 
brevity, yielding more intense emotion than could 
a longer narrative, makes one's conscious enjoyment 
the more lively. Narrative of any sort is an appeal 
to the imagination and will demand imaginative 
language, yet it may contain much, also, which 
makes a purely intellectual appeal. In the Short- 
story, however, there is a closer unity; what counts 
for plot advancement must serve also for emotional 
intensification. Form and content both make their 
demands on style, and both call for vividness. 

The style, however, is determined finally by the 
nature of the individual story. What is appropriate 
for one may not accord with the spirit of another. 
They, for example, and The Man Who Would Be 
King are both Short-stories and both by Kipling, 
yet their styles are utterly different. Just how they 
differ, it is perhaps difficult to say, but any one will 
recognize the fact. Each style fits the story to 
which it belongs, so perfectly that it contributes to 
the story itself. It has already been noted how the 
descriptions in They are made to produce atmosphere. 



176 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

There is throughout them a certain daintiness and 
airiness. In The Man Who Would Be King, how- 
ever, one is aware of a wholesome enthusiasm. Mrs. 
Knollys is almost discursive. Terseness would have 
been inappropriate. It is in the nature of this story 
to linger over the details. The story is simply told, 
too, for such a struggle against the sternness of 
nature would be offensive if told grandiloquently. 
The style is adapted to the story. In the stories of 
0. Henry, we deplore the carelessness with which 
asides are thrown in, the apparently needless pro- 
fusion of slang; yet we laugh and sympathize, — not 
because the stories themselves move us, but because 
they are told with the zest of one who is experiencing 
them. They seem natural, and it is a duty of style 
to leave an impression of naturalness. We should 
never enjoy By Courier, for instance, but for the 
inimitable translation of the man's message into 
the street-boy's language. Naturalness or propriety 
of style in the Short-story requires that every speech 
should sound appropriate in the mouth of the one 
who makes it; that every word and phrase and 
sentence should be in harmony with the prevailing 
idea of the story. 

The principle of greatest economy of means to- 
gether with utmost emphasis applies, also, in style. 
In the excellent Short-story we find dramatic in- 
tensity, a pruning away of all which does not in 
some way add strength. In the style, the spirit of 
the story is distilled. Words have their full value 
and do not appear as mere colorless terms. Every 



STYLE 177 

sentence strikes home with its message of suggestion. 
Ideas gain by being compressed in their statement. 
The direct style need not be beautiful, it needs to 
go straight to the point without hesitation. Two 
selections from The Outcasts of Poker Flat will 
illustrate. The first explains itself: 

"In point of fact, Poker Flat was 'after some- 
body.' It had lately suffered the loss of several 
thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a promi- 
nent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtu- 
ous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as 
any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret com- 
mittee had determined to rid the town of all improper 
persons." 

When the outcasts have been for a week snow- 
bound, we have this instance: 

"And yet no one complained. The lovers turned 
from the dreary prospect and looked into each 
other's eyes, and were happy. Mr. Oakhurst 
settled himself coolly to the losing game before him. 
The Duchess, more cheerful than she had been, 
assumed the care of Piney. Only Mother Shipton 
— once the strongest of the party — seemed to sicken 
and fade." 

In directness of narrative style probably no one 
has surpassed Guy de Maupassant. Notice these 
paragraphs from The Necklace: 

"She was one of those pretty and charming girls, 
who, as if by a blunder of destiny, are born in a 



178 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expecta- 
tions, no means of being known, understood, loved, 
married by a man rich and distinguished, and so 
she let herself be married to a petty clerk in the 
Department of Education." 

"She had no dresses, no jewelry, nothing. And 
she loved nothing else; she felt herself made for that 
only. She would so much have liked to please, to 
be envied, to be seductive and sought after." 

"She came to know the drudgery of house work, 
the odious cares of the kitchen. She washed the 
dishes, using her rosy nails on the greasy pots and 
the bottoms of the saucepans. She washed the 
dirty linen, the shirts and the dishcloths, which she 
hung to dry on a line; she carried the garbage down 
to the street every morning and carried up the 
water, stopping at each landing to rest. And, 
dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the 
fruiterer's, the grocer's, the butcher's; her basket on 
her arm, bargaining, abusing, defending sou by sou 
her miserable money." 

Equally direct is the following paragraph taken 
from Leonard Merrick's story, Little-Flower-of-the- 
Wood: 

"'I am very poor and ill,' she went on. 'I have 
been away in the South for more than two years; 
they told me I ought to stop there, but I had to see 






STYLE 179 

Paris once more! What does it matter? I shall 
finish here a little sooner, that is all. I lodge close 
by, in a garret. The garret is very dirty, but I hear 
the music from the Bal Tabarin across the way. 
I like that — I persuade myself I am living the 
happy life I used to have. When I am tossing 
sleepless, I hear the noise and laughter of the crowd 
coming out, and blow kisses to them in the dark. 
You see, although one is forgotten, one cannot for- 
get. I pray that their laughter will come up to me 
right at the end, before I die!'" 

Simplicity is closely akin to directness. As in 
the paragraph just quoted, they are found together. 
Notice the character of the words. They are nearly 
all those that a child might use, — note how many 
monosyllables. They are everyday words, — ' gar- 
ret,' 'dirty,' 'tossing,' 'noise,' 'laughter,' 'happy,' 
'crowd,' 'blow.' The sentences are short, for be- 
neath these words there is intense emotion. Pro- 
found emotion is always simple and seeks simple 
expression. The homely word and phrase fairly 
bristle with associations. They have power to 
move, for we feel them as concrete things. If there 
is an attempt to adorn, we feel a jar at once. The 
rococo in language is certain to detract from the 
real effect and to produce a counter impression. 
Nothing over-ornate — ornate to impress rather than 
to express — nothing unintelligible, nothing florid, 
nothing full of allusions of purely intellectual char- 
acter, nothing insincere, may pass openly and un- 
challenged through the gates of the Short-story. 



180 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

We are all children in that we like stories at all; 
and the more simple they are in the manner of 
their telling, the more do they awaken our childlike 
and elemental sympathies. We sit around a fire, — 
perhaps a camp-fire, — of an evening to hear a 
story told. If it has not been prepared for the 
occasion, but flows on simply, and naturally, and 
spontaneously, we like it the better. The spirit 
of the teller and the spirits of the listeners all seem 
to enter in to cover the deficiencies, and to fill in 
the pauses with recalled experiences. Such a story 
Mrs. Knollys seems. We for the time belong to 
the group of listeners. Surely, it was not first told 
into a typewriter. It is too tender, too simple, as 
if it were rising from the heart of him who tells it. 
Here is but one paragraph: 

"There were but two events in her life — that 
which was past and that which was to come. She 
had lived through his loss; now she lived on for 
his recovery. But, as I have said, she changed, 
as all things mortal change, all but the earth and 
the ice-stream and the stars above it. She read 
much, and her mind grew deep and broad, none 
the less gentle with it all; she was wiser in the 
world; she knew the depths of human hope and 
sorrow. You remember her only as an old lady 
whom we loved. Only her heart did not change — 
I forgot that; her heart, and the memory of that 
last loving smile upon his face, as he bent down to 
look into her eyes, before he slipped and fell. She 



STYLE 181 

lived on, and waited for his body, as possibly his 
other self — who knows? — waited for her. As she 
grew older she grew taller; her eyes were quieter, 
her hair a little straighter, darker than of yore; 
her face changed, only the expression remained 
the same. Mary Knollys!" 

To be simple, however, is not to be common- 
place. Whatever helps toward the intimate reali- 
zation of a scene, of an incident, of an emotion, be 
it attained even by a conscious striving after the 
artistic in expression, need not offend simplicity. 
Language which stimulates imaginative activity 
in a way that enforces the effect is, in the Short- 
story, legitimate. By an artful choice and arrange- 
ment of words imbued with feeling, language may 
give rise to an atmosphere, as boiling water throws 
up steam. In poetry, the subtle sympathy of con- 
tent and music as expressed by imitative word, by 
metres, rhythms, and rhymes, becomes a factor in 
one's appreciation and enjoyment. In the Short- 
story, too, language may affect atmosphere by 
touching one's creative memory. It cannot be 
fashioned in the manifold patterns of poetry, but 
it can bring to the story all the other graces of word 
choice and order. 

In making a vivid impression, picturesqueness of 
style is often of service. Words which compel one 
to visualize promote one's lively experience of the 
things themselves. They put one in a certain at- 
titude of receptivity; they strike a sensitive chord 






182 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

in the reader. In short, they create an atmos- 
phere, which, by according with the general at- 
mosphere of the story, gives it added forcefulness. 
Three times in Mrs. Knollys we are sent out by 
night to look at the glacier, the mountain, and the 
changing sky with its moon and stars: 

"The glacier has a light of its own, and gleams 
to stars above, and the great Glockner mountain 
flings his shadow of the planets in its face." 

The glacier seems changeless, the mountain above it 
remains unmoved, the stars are fixed in their places 
and move only in accordance with an immutable 
law. They shine upon the glacier, but they are as 
powerless to hurry its motion, as it is to influence 
theirs. While one watches the snowy surface of 
the glacier gleam upward and the planets reflected 
upon it, one is possessed with a nameless awe. 
Unwittingly, we are already cloaked deep in an 
atmosphere of tension. 

In some stories, as in They, this picturesqueness 
forms a large factor in atmosphere. One is forced 
to look, and when one has looked, one has fallen 
under the spell of its witchery. The picturesque- 
ness of this passage is particularly notable: 

"The red light poured itself along the age-polished 
dusky panels till the Tudor roses and lions took 
on colour and motion. An old eagle-topped convex 
mirror gathered the picture into its mysterious 
heart, distorting afresh the distorted shadows, and 
curving the gallery lines into the curves of a ship. 



STYLE 183 

The day was shutting down in half a gale as the 
fog turned to stringy scud; through the uncurtained 
mullions of the broad window I could see the valiant 
horsemen on the lawn curvet and caracole against 
the wind that pelted them with dead leaves." 

In many stories such a picture as this would seem 
mere verbiage; in They it is a part of the atmos- 
phere. It is the restless motion which catches and 
rivets attention. 

Another use is made of motion in Markheim. 
The tremulousness which the guilty murderer sees 
in everything about him is the first evidence of his 
nervousness, the first token of any waverings of 
conscience: 

"The candle stood on the counter, its flame 
solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that incon- 
siderable movement, the whole room was filled 
with noiseless bustle and kept heaving like a sea: 
the tall shadows nodding, the gross blots of dark- 
ness swelling and dwindling as with respiration, the 
faces of the portraits and the china gods changing 
and wavering like images in water. The inner door 
stood ajar, and peered into that leaguer of shadows 
with a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger." 

One would have missed the suggestion in large 
measure, if not entirely, if Stevenson had written 
instead: 

The lighted candle stood on the counter, and by 
the inconsiderable movement of its flame the whole 



184 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

room was filled with noiseless bustle, with tall shad- 
ows and gross blots of darkness, with the blurred 
faces of portraits and china gods. 

This picture would not have been compelling, it 
would not have served the author's purpose. It is 
the movement, the 'wagging,' the 'heaving,' the 
'swelling and dwindling,' the 'changing and waver- 
ing' which make the picture count for atmosphere. 
Here, greatest economy of means has given way to 
utmost emphasis with a gain to atmosphere that 
is past telling. 

One notices in this paragraph that figurative 
language is used to make the picture definite. We 
are told exactly with what to make comparison 
instead of being allowed vaguely to sense these 
comparisons for ourselves. Because of its value 
for conciseness, a figurative style is often found even 
in the Short-story. We are brought to see two 
things and wherein alone they are alike. One's 
experience of the thing described is sharpened by 
being brought into exact focus. Each object, too, 
has a suggestion of its own, and these things taken 
together imply a richness which neither has in itself. 
One might wish to make it plain that a certain man 
was angry. We should perhaps speak of the con- 
traction of his brows, the rapidity of his expres- 
sion, of his tone of voice; we should quote his words. 
All this description, unless of course it was the 
main point of the story, would be less definite, less 
forceful than the more simple, more vehement 



STYLE 185 

expression, He stormed. 1 Naturally, in the Short- 
story, where one is seeking the greatest possible 
impression in the fewest possible words, such 
figurative language is valuable. Markheim is full 
of such language: 

"Meanwhile, and behind all this activity, brute 
terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic, 
filled the more remote chambers of his brain with 
riot, the hand of the constable would fall heavy on 
his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooked 
fish, or he beheld in galloping defile, the dock, the 
prison, the gallows, and the black coffin." 

"Terror of the people in the street sat down before 
his mind like a besieging army." 

"Like some dripping cavern, the chambers of 
the house were haunted by an incessant echoing." 

"The solid walls might become transparent and 
reveal his doings like those of bees in a glass hive; 
the stout planks might yield under his foot like 
quicksand and detain him in their clutch." 

The dealer "was sunk beneath seas of silence." 
Markheim himself "was smitten into ice." He 
would "plunge into a bath of London multitudes"; 
he would be "buried among bedclothes." 

Markheim is unusually tense; it treats of a critical 
moment, of a life turning-point. The murderer is 

1 When verbs can thus be made to do duty, there is an in- 
crease in the forcefulness of expression, for verbs actively indi- 
cate the desired comparison without delaying movement. 



186 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

in a state of high nervous excitement. Temporarily, 
he has lost mastery of himself. He is panic-striken, 
intoxicated with horror at his own deed. Thoughts 
and feelings flee through his mind in wild disarray; 
all uncontrolled, former experiences flood past him. 
This condition is expressed actively by language 
in a luxuriance of imagery. While simple emotion, 
however profound, results in style simplicity, a 
conflict of emotions, resulting in excitement, pro- 
vokes figurative expression. In Mrs. Knollys, where 
the tension is low and the emotion simple yet pro- 
found, figurative language would have been highly 
inappropriate. If the language is not the trenchant 
expression of that which the story demands shall 
be the experience of the reader, it is a mere daub. 
Figurative language in the well-wrought Short- 
story never serves as mere ornament. It is con- 
fined to those comparisons which are subtly but 
emotionally illuminative. 

As has been intimated in a preceding chapter, 
sounds, also, are conducive to atmosphere. These, 
too, may be represented in language with more or 
less distinctness. Words and sentences may have 
tone-color: they may heighten emotional appre- 
ciation by a careful adaptation of sound-values. 
We are all aware of the significance of the purely 
imitative words: chatter, crash, thunder, boom, 
tinkle, gurgle, whisper, creak,'roar, bang, patter, purr, 
snarl, hiss, and countless others. We all take 
pleasure in using those other words which are not 
directly suggestive of sound, yet through their own 



STYLE 187 

sound manifest the meaning. We feel such words 
as jerk, swoop, wag, whirl, swell, bubble, wiggle, skip, 
pump. These make for vividness anywhere. Yet 
sentences as well as words may simulate sound 
and affect one's mood. Markheim again offers 
illustration: 

"The thought was yet in his mind, when first 
one and then another, with every variety of pace and 
voice, — one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, 
another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of 
a waltz, — the clocks began to strike the hour of 
three in the afternoon." 

Or again: 

"And as he began with great effort to mount 
the stairs, feet fled quietly before him and followed 
stealthily behind." 

Poe, too, was ever watchful of the movement of 
his sentences and the successions of vowels and 
consonants, as the following passage from The 
Masque of the Red Death well illustrates: 

"And these — the dreams — writhed in and 
about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the 
wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of 
their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony 
clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And 
then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save 
the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen 
as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die 
away — they have endured but an instant — and 



188 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as 
they depart. And now again the music swells, and 
the dreams live and writhe to and fro more merrily 
than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows 
through which stream the rays from the tripods." 

The effect is not far to be sought. It is in the per- 
fect adaptation of sound to sense. This is one of 
the means which style possesses of affecting atmos- 
phere. Yet language is a delicate instrument and 
atmosphere, a dainty drapery; and both, the masters 
of the Short-story have handled with consummate 
care. 

He who attempts this task must himself be exceed- 
ingly sensitive to emotional effects. He must be 
able to estimate ^ words and phrases for what they 
are, to know what expressions have lost their original 
verve, and which are still aglow, — for some have 
grown cold in being passed from one to another, 
and some are just coming into being. He must 
have, throughout, that harmonious nicety of touch 
which comes only from the response of his own 
nature to his subject. 



X 

THE PERSONALITY OF THE WRITER 

Thus far we have treated the Short-story as a 
form, as a technique. Yet one should never lose 
sight of the fact that technique alone cannot make 
an admirable story. Faultless technique is neces- 
sary in the Short-story as in the sonnet, but it is 
not the final test of worth. We praise a musician's 
technique, yet we rightly enjoy the performance 
only when it shows warmth of feeling. The Short- 
story form has become common; it greets us on 
every side. Story-writers who have mistaken tech- 
nical skill for true art have sprung up like weeds in 
a meadow. The result is that people are well-nigh 
sated with inferior work. If in the last half dozen 
years the Short-story has seemed to degenerate, 
if it has come to be regarded as more or less of a 
dissipation by people who enjoy strenuous thinking, 
it is small wonder. People who have not thought 
keenly and felt sincerely can imitate a form; they 
cannot make literature. If as much prominence 
were given to cheap, imitation poetry whose only 
virtue is a close adherence to a strict metre, a defi- 
nite rhyme-scheme, and a well-regulated rhythm, as 
there is given to the same sort of Short-story, we 
should gain a highly inadequate and absurd idea 



190 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

of the real value and beauty of poetry. There is 
a Short-story which is more than form; one which 
we care to remember as we do a good poem. We 
read it again and again. It, too, has a rigid form, 
but it has what technique can never give, a personal 
element. It is written in emotional fervor by those 
who have tasted life in some of its sweetness and 
bitterness, and who are ready to speak their vision 
out of a full heart. 

All writing, except the purely scientific, is an 
expression of the personality of him who writes it. 
Facts are the same in their essence to every one. 
The plain statement of fact is like absolute zero. 
It is entirely devoid of warmth; it has no fringe 
of feeling. So soon, however, as it ceases to stand 
by itself in space and begins to come into relation 
to people, it becomes interesting. It impresses us 
in some way. We feel certain things about it. It 
is then that our individuality enters. No two of 
us are alike, and no two of us will have exactly the 
same feelings about a given fact. Realizing this 
divergence of feeling, we are anxious to compare 
and share our experiences. In the narrow world 
about us, in the circle of our friends, this is easily 
accomplished. We smell a bunch of lilacs, then 
hand it to our friend. We watch a beautiful sun- 
set, and we call others to see it, that they may 
share our joy. We stand on a hill-top in the fall 
of the year, and we point out one object after an- 
other: the gum-trees turned dark red, the sun shining 
on the bare poplars, the mingled yellow and green and 



THE PERSONALITY OF THE WRITER 



191 



russet of the maples. All these objects we name 
because we are unwilling that another should miss 
their beauty. Even then, very often, some one is 
unsatisfied, and in the attempt to make realization 
more vivid, utters some platitude. He says that 
the hill looks like a tapestry or a veiled Persian silk. 
He is trying to express himself. Only in an exceed- 
ingly limited way can we thus bring anyone into 
actual contact with that which we feel as beautiful 
or interesting. That which stirs our feeling and 
prompts our instinct for self-expression may be 
largely or wholly beyond the sphere of the senses. 
It may be an experience, spiritual in its nature; a 
touch of pity for misfortune; a joy in the well- won 
victory of a noble aspiration; a bitter indignation 
for some deed of shame; a thrill at some heroic act. 
We feel as before the same impulse to express our- 
selves. Voice and gesture do not now avail. Writ- 
ing comes in. Paper and ink become the medium 
for our vision. So literature is born, when such 
experience and such desire come to a great soul. 

It follows that he who writes has a real vision 
to impart, and that he is not writing merely for 
effect. "To invoke ideas with words is a much 
more difficult experience than the reverse process," 
says John Burroughs. 1 It is not only more difficult, 
but more fruitless. We write that another may 
share our thrill; and unless we have genuinely felt 
it, we cannot impart it. Literature always bears 
the impress of personality; a man writes himself 
1 Literary Values, p. 73, Riverby Edition. 



192 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

into his work. If he has no message, he delivers 
none; if he has seen beauty in the world, it is beauty 
that he shows us; if he has seen pain, and cruelty, 
and ugliness, and pettiness, he will represent these; 
if he understands only facts, he will give us facts. 
It is just as true that one man sees and feels what 
another may pass by. What seems dull common- 
place to one, may be music to another. "Two men 
have the same thoughts; they use about the same 
words in expressing them; yet with one the product 
is real literature, with the other it is a platitude." * 
The difference is in the personality of the men. 
Behind the worthy novel, the great poem, the 
powerful Short-story, there is a sincere personality 
revealing itself in literary form. The world is 
interested in personality. It is not so much the 
facts that a man sees that interest us; it is the facts 
become a part of the man himself. Beauty comes 
to every one differently, for each infuses something 
of his own life into what he sees. Some more than 
others have this power of revealing themselves. 
The friends of Phillips Brooks are said to have been 
satisfied simply to sit in his study and watch him 
work. Ordinarily, however, we expect to listen 
to men as they talk, or to read what they write, 
and thus to come to see through their eyes, to 
touch their spirits, to feel the irradiation of their 
personalities. 

All literature demands personality as a basis. 
Yet he who would write stories must have certain 
1 Burroughs, Literary Values, p. 59, Riverby Edition. 



THE PERSONALITY OF THE WRITER 193 

qualities specially developed. First of all, the 
good story-teller has the intellectual ability of 
grasping facts, — facts of all sorts — scientific 
facts, narrative facts, imaginative facts, historical 
facts, — just plain facts. He sees everything around 
him. He knows the feel of the winds, the tones of 
the foliage, the effects of the fogs, the movements 
of the butterflies, the chirping of the crickets. He 
knows people; he studies their appearance, their 
manners, their habits. He needs to know how they 
talk to their dogs and how they look when they 
are doing a washing. No knowledge, however 
trivial, is to be scorned by the story-writer. He 
observes details, the little facts; yet he does not 
let the more important escape him. We are con- 
stantly astonished at the minute and diversified 
knowledge which Kipling displays. We have reason 
to believe that this information did not come to 
him unsought. He was always questioning, watch- 
ing, experiencing. 0. Henry has told us with what 
painstaking he gathered his facts. He never met 
any one, he said, from whom in the course of a con- 
versation, he could not gain some valuable infor- 
mation. Maupassant was an indefatigable observer, 
as his stories testify. He sought not only the facts 
themselves, but he sought to penetrate to their 
essential nature, — to see what differentiated them 
from other like facts. In his oft-quoted Introduc- 
tion to Pierre et Jean, he says: "In everything there 
is still some spot unexplored, because we are accus- 
tomed to look at things only with the recollection 



194 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

of what others before us have thought of the sub- 
ject we are contemplating. The smallest object 
contains something unknown. Let us find it. In 
order to describe a fire that flames, and a tree on 
the plain, we must keep looking at that flame and 
that tree, until to our eyes they no longer resemble 
any other tree, any other fire." It is this minute 
and careful observation which, so far as he is able, 
every Short-story writer must cultivate. 

Along with a knowledge of facts, the story-teller 
has the imaginative ability of realizing what he has 
not personally experienced. He is called upon to 
write many things which have not been in his own 
narrow life. Yet through his imagination he is 
able to correlate his facts, and make his picture. 
What he reads, what he hears told, these he sees 
as if they were passing before him. Thus he is 
able to sort out the congruous from the incongruous, 
to distinguish the natural from the unnatural, to 
know when passion is fitting, and when coolness. 
He is able to enter into the life of those he depicts, 
to appreciate their circumstances, to understand 
their motives, — even when these things would not 
be his own. He needs to be able to put himself 
temporarily in the place of his character, to think 
his thoughts, to do his deeds. How understandingly 
Stevenson shows us Markheim. He entered imagi- 
natively into the situation. Poe had perfect imag- 
inative insight into the character of Montresor. 
From beginning to end, the story shows Poe's 
ability to penetrate into the deep-seated vindictive- 



THE PERSONALITY OF THE WRITER 195 

ness of the man. Not that it possesses this quality 
conspicuously above other portions of the story, but 
as an illustration, let us look at this passage: 

"Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which 
I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon 
the mould. 

"'Drink,' I said, presenting him the wine. 

"He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused 
and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled. 

"'I drink,' he said, 'to the buried that repose 
around us.' 

"'And I to your long life.'" 

In a flash, Montresor has realized the unwitting 
appropriateness of Fortunato's toast, and in the 
cool consciousness that he is already drinking to 
the buried, though living, Fortunato, he answers, 
"And I to your long life." So thoroughly had 
Poe imagined situation and character that he could 
unerringly represent Montresor in this moment of 
vindictive foresight. It is hard to surpass in the 
representing of utter fiendishness this gloating over 
the long hours of living death soon to overtake the 
victim. 

Along with his imaginative insight — an intel- 
lectual quality — the story-writer needs sympathy, 
which is emotional in nature. He need not represent 
that which is unbeautiful as beautiful, or that which 
is not good as good. Sympathy is not partisan- 
ship. It is the ability to feel that which one has 
already realized of a situation intellectually. Steven- 



196 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

son had imaginative insight, but along with it 
sympathy. How fully Kipling caught the spirit of 
Miss Florence, and how sympathetically he has 
portrayed it. How unreservedly Mr. Stimson has 
let himself feel the love, the despair, the hope of 
Mrs. Knollys. One may coldly enumerate the 
details, the events of such stories, but the stories 
will never live unless one puts life into them. Life 
is always warm; a cold relation of life can only 
chill. Stories are written not in the mood of scien- 
tific analysis, but of lively enthusiasm. 

Because Guy de Maupassant was unwilling to 
influence his readers, he adopted the dispassionate 
attitude. He robbed his stories of much that 
might have made them real. Perfect in form, 
they yet seem more the productions of a machine 
than the warm creations of a man's imagination. 
His people are interesting. He describes them as 
he would have described a tree or a stone. We 
admire his grasp of facts, his ability to make an 
imaginative situation, but his stories live only ob- 
jectively for us. We watch Madame Loisel, we are 
sorry for her sufferings, we appreciate the irony 
of the result; but we never suffer with her. The 
writer himself was a spectator, and we, too, are 
but onlookers at a struggle. Observation has sup- 
planted realization. The story is a fact but not an 
experience. Mr. Esenwein says excellently: "Mau- 
passant was also a literalist, and this native trait 
served to render his realism colder and more unsym- 
pathetic. By this I mean that to him two and three 



THE PERSONALITY OF THE WRITER 197 

always summed up five — his temperament would 
not allow for the unseen, imponderable force of 
spiritual things; and even when he mentions the 
spiritual, it is with a sort of tolerant unbelief which 
scorns to deny the superstitious solace of women, 
weaklings and zealots." l Hence Maupassant, con- 
summate master of form and Short-story technique 
though he is, has failed to reach and control the 
hearts of men. 2 

Although having certain common qualities, the 
personalities of story-tellers vary widely. This dif- 
ference naturally shows itself in the kind of story 
that each one can write best. One may have special 
ability in treating the humorous. For another, the 
pathetic may be the imaginative stimulus. Some 
persons may write of the occult with greater natural 
zest than they could of the simple and plain. As 
the personality of the writer varies, so varies the 
type of story that he can most effectively produce. 
This divergence affects not only one's choice of 

1 Short-story Masterpieces: French. Edited by J. B. Esen- 
wein, pp. 54-5. 

2 That he was conscious at times of this withering weakness 
in his own personality appears pitifully in a letter of his to Marie 
Bashkirtseff: "Everything in life is almost alike to me, men, 
women, events. This is my true confession of faith, and I may 
add what you may not believe, which is that I do not care 
any more for myself than I do for the rest. All is divided into 
ennui, comedy, and misery. I am indifferent to everything. I 
pass two-thirds of my time in being terribly bored. I pass the 
third portion in writing sentences which I sell as dear as I can, 
regretting that I have to ply this abominable trade." Quoted 
by Pol. Neveux in his study of Guy de Maupassant 



198 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

subjects, but one's attitude toward them. What 
seems humor as told by one often falls flat when 
related by another. Whether one's attitude is 
playful or serious is determined by the nature of 
the writer. Mr. Aldrich might have treated Mar- 
jorie Daw seriously, but for him the whimsical was 
the natural manner. How different are Hawthorne, 
and Kipling, and Henry James, and Poe, in their 
stories! Hawthorne was always trying to work out 
the spiritual relations of things. He was a moral 
analyst. Kipling seems to love life in all its aspects. 
His is a buoyant nature, always finding novelty, 
always searching for that which is interesting. He 
is not subtle. He accepts the world as he finds it; 
and he finds it a place full of love and hatred, full 
of suffering and woe, yet withal full of exuberant 
life. Henry James is the intellectual analyst, eager 
to work out all problems rationally. He finds the 
world an interesting phenomenon. He loves it as 
a mechanic loves his engine. He would adjust the 
machinery, tighten a bolt, and oil a bearing. Poe, 
on the other hand, entered into life with a passion, 
— but a morbid passion. All beauty was for him 
poisoned with decay. 1 Imagine Hawthorne trying 
to write a story with the single impression of They. 

1 "Passionately fond of beauty, he conceived the melancholy 
idea that beauty and grace are interesting only in their over- 
throw. 'I have imbibed,' he says, 'the shadows of fallen col- 
umns at Balbec, and Tadmor, and Persepolis, until my very 
soul has become a ruin.' And his stories have the romantic 
interest of glimpses of splendid ruins." Albright, The Short- 
story, p. 185. 



THE PERSONALITY OF THE WRITER 199 

He would have made it uncanny. It would have 
made its reader feel as if he were trespassing 
on another realm. Imagine Kipling writing' The 
Madonna of the Future. Instead of emphasizing 
Mr. Theobald's artistic idealism, Kipling would 
have insisted on the heart-break of the man's 
failure. How different, too, were the touches of 
Poe and Hawthorne. It is the personality of the 
individual men which makes the difference in their 
stories. 

He who writes stories knows his own personality. 
He has found by experience the kind of stories which 
he can write best. He feels it his duty to express 
his own personality and not to write stories or to 
use a style absolutely foreign to his nature. He 
need have no fear of expressing himself, for the world 
may be waiting, unconsciously, for just what he 
has to say in the way that he chooses to say it. 
By trying to imitate another's stories or another's 
style, he loses his own originality, which is nothing 
more or less than the genuine reflection of his 
personality. 1 He never can do so well as can the 
one he is trying to imitate. Moreover, he can 
never assimilate another's personality. If he try, 

1 "And that virtue of originality that men so strain after, 
is not newness, as they vainly think (there is nothing new), 
it is only genuineness; it all depends on this single glorious 
faculty of getting to the spring of things and working out from 
that; it is the coolness, and clearness, and deliciousness of the 
water fresh from the fountain head, opposed to the thick, hot, 
unrefreshing drainage from other men's meadows." Ruskin, 
Modern Painters, vol. ii, sec. ii, chap. Ill, p. 253, Library Edition. 



200 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

he will be neither himself nor the other person; 
he will be in a limbo of his own from which only 
a long penitence and the reclaiming of his own 
proper self can ever release him. He may, as did 
Stevenson for awhile, play the sedulous ape to many 
masters, but in the end his Short-stories will be 
valuable only in proportion as they express his own 
personality. 

When one takes personality as well as form into 
account, the great Short-story rises to something 
of the dignity of the poem. In studying it appre- 
ciatively, still more in writing it, one is forced not 
only to the realization of a careful literary form, 
but also to the development — to a greater or 
less extent — of those same qualities of intellectual 
grasp, of imaginative power, and of sympathetic 
insight which belong to the great story-teller. One 
may say also of the Short-story: "Of course the 
suggestiveness of any work — poem, picture, novel, 
essay — depends largely upon what we bring to it; 
whether we bring a kindred spirit or an alien one, 
a full mind or an empty one, an alert sense or a dull 
one. If you have been there, so to speak, if you have 
passed through the experience described, if you 
have known the people portrayed, if you have 
thought, or tried to think, the thoughts the author 
exploits, the work will have a deeper meaning to 
you than to one who is a stranger to these things. 
... It is the deep hollows and passes of the moun- 
tains that give back your voice in prolonged rever- 
berations. The tides are in the sea, not in the 



THE PERSONALITY OF THE WRITER 201 

lakes and ponds. Words of deep import do not 
mean much to a child. The world of books is 
under the same law as these things. What any 
given work yields us depends largely upon what 
we bring to it." l Moreover, in writing, a man is 
led to explore his own personality. He is seeing 
the world through his own eyes. Things take on 
fresh luster because they are made new to him. 
He is no longer the slave of other men's vision. 
He is himself. As Mr. Eastman says, in Enjoyment 
of Poetry: "This is the priesthood of art — not to 
bestow upon the universe a new aspect, but upon 
the beholder a new enthusiasm." 

We read a great Short-story as we do a great 
poem, — not to feel a moment's yearning, the call 
of something which can never distinctly reach us; 
we read it because it fills us with a new enthusiasm 
for living. It makes us wish to endure, and love, 
and hate; to hope, aspire, and work; to fill our 
youth with joyous labor, and to grow old still in the 
joy of living. We wish to go forth with the tingling 
of battle in our nerves. We should soon revert to 
the humdrum, to think that every day is like every 
other day, to think that every star is like every 
other star, to let our thoughts run ever around in 
the same track, to carry out the details of life as if 
we were machines, were there not always before 
us stimulation to new achievement, were our eyes 
not opened by our catching now and then a glimpse 
of another's vision. All true art has this beneficent 

1 Burroughs, Literary Values, pp. 239-40, Riverby Edition. 



202 THE MODERN SHORT-STORY 

effect; one cannot indeed claim it for the Short- 
story alone. Yet the Short-story may have its 
share in keeping the echo of true aspirations ring- 
ing through men's souls. The great Short-story 
does not die when it is read. It has awakened 
thoughts which rouse men from their drowsiness, 
nor do they ever go back into quite their old lethargy. 
They feel new impulse to experience, to fresh re- 
solve. The lesser Short-story may have swept our 
emotion an hour, and be gone as the wind from the 
tree-tops; but the great Short-story takes its place 
in art along with great poetry, great music, great 
painting. 

The present commercialization of the Short-story 
is working against this development and revelation 
of personality. "Give the public what it demands" 
is the saying, — irrespective of whether that is 
what a writer wishes to produce or can produce 
best, if he but take the time. To be true to one- 
self is a difficult task, a high calling: it takes time, 
and courage, and devotion to an ideal. Many 
people can grind out a best seller for some cheap 
periodical; few are willing to pay the price that 
produces a Mrs. Knollys, or a They. It is to be 
regretted, too, that many books treating of the 
Short-story are encouraging this commercial spirit. 
Let us rather enter our protest in the name of true 
art. Let us urge anew upon every one who would 
enter the Short-story field to come to it as to high 
art, with a message: to be true to the highest, to 
live by the gospel of the best. To produce a Short- 



THE PERSONALITY OF THE WRITER 203 

story in this way may take a lifetime. Yet the 
true writer knows how 

... to bide his time 

And can his fame abide, 
Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 

Till the wise years decide. 
Great captains with their guns and drums 

Disturb our judgment for the hour, 

But at last silence comes, 1 

and the verdict of ages. 

1 James Russell Lowell, Harvard Commemoration Ode. 



INDEX 




Accessory characters : purpose 
of in plot, 18, 64-5; in struc- 
ture, 77; uses of, 78-82 

Accomplishments, suggestive of 
character, 153 

Action: time for, and place of, 
18; story of, 21; as material 
of plot, 56; relation of char- 
acters to a., 64; antecedent 
a., 90-2; a form of beginning, 
112; a means of characteri- 
zation, 148-9 

Adventure-story, 25 

Aim of Short-story, 77 

Albright, Evelyn May, The 
Short-story, 5, 7, 11, 15, 27, 
40, 198, n., 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 
MarjorieDaw, 66-7, 91, 96-7, 
107, 126, 136, 198 

Allegory, 26 

"Angles of Narration" : 77, 93- 
9; objective a., 93-4, 99, n.; 
participant a., 94-7, 99, n.; 
story within story a., 97-9, 
99, n.; witness a., 97, 99, n. 

Animals as characters, 63 

Antecedent action, 9(>-2 

Appearance, as suggestive of 
character, 150-52 

Argumentation, no proper place 
for in Short-story, 46 

Association, value for atmos- 
phere, 158, 163, 166 

Atmosphere: its nature, 158-9; 
relation to setting, 158-9; 
value of, 159; strengthens 
single impression, 160-61 ; 
means of producing a., 161- 
7; aids to a., 167-72; as 
colored by style, 181 



Attitude of writer, as influen- 
cing story, 22, 197-8 

Bach, Johann Sebastian, 174 

Background: characters used, 
as b., 69, 80, 82; local color as 
b., 171 

Balzac, Honore de, An Epi- 
sode under the Terror, 125 

Beginning of Short-story, 77, 
103, 110-21; important, 103; 
its harmony with end, 
108-10; length of b., 110; 
how determined, 110-11; 
function of b., Ill; forms of 
b., 112-14; first sentence of 
b., 114-15; limits of b., as 
determined in eight cited 
Short-stories, 115-21 

Biography, a source of germinal 
ideas, 42 

Black, E. C, The Future of the 
Short-story, 27, 44 

Blaisdell, Thomas C, Compo- 
sition-Rhetoric, 44 

Boccaccio, Giovanni, 98 

Bordone, Paris, Fisherman Re- 
turning the Ring, 69 

Brevity of Short-story, 3, 174, 
175 

Brooks, Phillips, 134, 192 

Burroughs, John, Literary 
Values, 191, 192, 200-201 

Canby, Henry Seidel, 17, A 
Study of the Short-story, 9, 
n., 44; The Short-story in 
English, 58 

Character: Story of c, 21, 59, 
63; as plot-material, 56; re- 
lation of c. and action, 56-7; 



206 



INDEX 



a factor of beginning, 111; 
a form of beginning, 112-13; 
complex, 133; limits of de- 
velopment in Short-story, 
138-9 

Characterization: swift and 
intense, 129-30; requisites in 
c, 129-30; an idealization, 
131-2; importance of main 
incident for c, 130-41; aid- 
ed by sympathetic attitude 
of reader, 140-41; gradual, 
144-6; by narrator, 146; 
methods of c. — direct, 142- 
7, indirect, 147-8; by ob- 
served influence, 149-50 

Characters in Short-story : main 
and accessory, 18, 62-5; 
uniqueness of main, 63-4; c. 
in plot, when and how chosen, 
62-5, — examples from four 
Short-stories, 66-73 ; develop- 
ing c, meaning and uses, 77, 
78-82; examples, ibid; dis- 
tinguished as, typical, 133-4, 
generic, 134-6, individual, 
136-7 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 91 

Chopin, Frederic, 174 

Climax: essential to Short- 
story, 10, 20, 56, 70; what it 
is, 10-11; selective emphasis 
upon c, 12, 19; relation of c. 
to single impression, 15, 59; 
how attained, 56; place of c, 
57; as guiding plot-construc- 
tion, 57, 62; forms of c, 57- 
9; in character-story, 59; c. 
illustrated, 58, 67, 68-9, 71; 
relation of c. to theme, 67; c. 
as end of story, details may 
assist c. 86, 104-6; may 
be enhanced by atmospheric 
background, 165 

Cody, Sherwin, Short-story 
Writing and Journalism, 24, 
40 

Commercialization of Short- 
story, 202 

Commonplaces as subject- 
matter, 7-8 



Complication; a preparation 
for climax, 59; involves con- 
flict, 59-61; circumstances 
leading to c, 61-2, 70,- 
examples, 67-9, 74; c. il- 
lustrated, 66, 68, 69, 73; 
sensing of c. marks limit of 
beginning, 110-11 

Contrast, as germinal idea, 38; 
use of in the portraying of 
character, 64-5, 72, 79, 155; 
use for atmosphere, 167-9; 
emphasized by local color, 
171-72 

Coppee, Francois, The Substi- 
stute, 10 

Corot, Jean, 174 

Crises: as subject-matter, 7; 
may be gradation in c, 83-4 

Crucial incidents and situations 
not essential, 6-7 

Daudet, Alphonse, The Last 
Class, 13 

Dawson, W. J., 36 

Description, nature of in rela- 
tion to atmosphere, 161-65 

Details: value for verisimili- 
tude, 101-2; may burden 
characterization, 143, or de- 
scription, 166 

Detective story, 17, 22 

Dialect, 172 

Dialogue, 156-7 

Diary, "angle" of, 96-7 

Didacticism, 26, 49 

Directness, see Dramatic in- 
tensity 

Divisions of narrative, 92-3 

Dominant note: relation to end 
and beginning, 110; value 
for tone, 111 

Dramatic intensity, a style 
quality, 176-9 

Dreams, as germinal idea, 41 

Dye, Charity, The Story-Teller's 
Art, 39 

Eastman, Max, Enjoyment of 

Poetry, 201 
Economic question, story of, 23 



INDEX 



207 



Economy of means; a principle 
of structure, 77-8; a principle 
of style, 176 

Effect, single, see Impression 

Effects, value for atmosphere, 
166-7 

Elements of story, 21 

Emotional incidents: use for 
atmosphere, 79-80, 85-6, 166; 
use for minor crises in struc- 
ture, 83-4 

Emphasis: must be sustained, 
12; selective, 19; utmost e., 
a principle of structure, 77-8 

End of Short-story, 77; impor- 
tance of, 103-4, 121; relation 
to single impression, 103-4; 
climax as e., 104-6; form 
varies, 104; a surprise, 105- 
6; tapering off from climax, 
106-7; as intensifier of single 
effect, 107-8; a comment, 
107; harmony of e. with be- 
ginning, 108-10 

Environment: in plot, 65-6, 67, 
74; its meaning for character- 
ization, 133, 135-6; a means 
of characterization, 153-4 

Esenwein, J. Berg, Short-story 
Masterpieces: French, 196-7; 
Studying the Short-story, 25, 
41, 48 ; Writing the Short-story, 
45 

Events, order of in Short-story, 
77,89-92 

Experience, a source of germi- 
nal ideas, 39-42 

Facts: use of in fiction, 53; 

quickened by feeling, 190; 

grasp of f. essential, 193-4 
Fansler, Harriott Ely, Types 

of Prose Narratives, 26, 100 
Fairy stories, 99-100 
Figurative language, 184-6 
First sentence in Short-story: 

its varieties and purposes, 

114-5; examination of, in 

several stories, 109, 115-21 
Foreshadowing, value of for 

atmosphere, 169-170 



Francois, Recollections of Guy 
de Maupassant, 131-32, n. 

Freeman, Mary Wilkins, 8; 
The Revolt of Mother, 68, 
81-2, 85, 86, 90, 106, 115-6, 
126, 134, 137-8, 145, 154 

Garland, Hamlin, The Branch 
Road, 23 

Generalization: a form of be- 
ginning, 113-4; in The Man 
Who would Be King, 120 

Germinal idea : distinguished 
and defined, 29-31; its vari- 
ety, 31-9; its sources, 39-42; 
testing it for possibilities, 43 

Hackneyed themes and meth- 
ods, why unfortunate, 45-6 

Hale, Edward Everett, The 
Man Without a Country, 20, 
65, n. 

Hamilton, Clayton, Materials 
and Methods of Fiction, 77-8 

Harmony of end and beginning, 
108-10 

Harper's Weekly, 4 

Harte, Bret, 47: The Luck of 
Roaring Camp, 10; The Out- 
casts of Poker Flat, 29-30, 49, 
70-4, 79, 84, 88, 91, 94, 108, 
109, 126, 135, 139, 141, 148, 
168, 170, 177 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 21, 
34, 37, n., 198, 199; American 
NoteBooks, 33-4;Rappaccini' s 
Daughter, 13; The Birthmark, 
34; The Great Stone Face, 10; 
The Scarlet Letter, 14 

Henry, O., 99, n., 176, 193; 
After Twenty Years, 93, 105- 
6, 109, 119, 146, 147, 149- 
51, 157, 160-61; By Courier, 
176 

History, a source of germinal 
ideas, 42 

Howells, Wm. Dean, 10 

Idea, see Germinal idea 
Imaginative insight, needed by 
story-writer, 194-5 



208 



INDEX 



Impression, of character, as 
germinal idea, 32; of setting, 
36-8 

Impression, single: a constitu- 
ent of the Short-story, 3, 12; 
what it is, 13; its power, 
kinds, importance, 13-4; 
unlike that of novel, 14; how 
attained, 15; relation to 
climax, 15, 59; emotional 
rather than intellectual, 16; 
Poe's estimate of, 19; first 
sentence as affecting, 19; 
when selected, 49-50; intensi- 
fied at end, 104; stated 
briefly for several Short- 
stories, 13, 108, 117, 141, 160, 
162; as guiding style, 174 

Incidents: crucial, not neces- 
sary, 6-7; what they are, 9; 
distinguished from situations, 
9; in adventure stories, 25; 
as germinal idea, 32-3; in 
structure, 77, 82-6; use and 
classes of, 82-6; to further 
movement, 83-4; to illus- 
trate, 84-5; to awaken emo- 
tion, 85-6; value of emotional 
incidents for atmosphere, 
166-7 

Individuality: many-sided, 137; 
to be drawn with restraint, 
ibid. 

Intellectual grasp, needed by 
story-teller, 193-4 

James, Henry, 92, 99, n.; 
The Madonna of the Future, 
79, 85, 98, 104, 127, 133, 146, 
151-2, 154, 155-6, 171, 198, 
199 

Jessup and Canby, The Book of 
the Short-story, 6 

Johnson, C. F., Elements of 
Literary Criticism, 132 

Kipling, Rudyard, 47, 99, n., 
193, 196, 198, 199; Without 
Benefit of Clergy, 5; .007, 63; 
Life's Handicap, 41, 48; The 
Drums of the Fore and Aft, 13 ; 



The Man Who Was, 124; 
The Brushwood Boy, 126; 
The Man Who Would Be 
King, 68-70, 86, 91, 97-8, 
101, 106-7, 120-21, 124, 135, 
150, 153, 155, 171-2, 175-6; 
They, 9, 13, 58, 80, 85, 95, 
100-1, 106, 109. 118, 127-8, 
134, 146, 149, 154, 157, 160, 
162-5, 166-7, 175, 182-3, 196, 
198, 202 
Knowledge, intimate, needed 
for Short-story, 46-8 

Length, of Short-story 17; of 

beginning, 110 
Letter, "angle" of, 96-7 
Lieberman, Elias, The Ameri- 
can Short-story, 24, n. 
Local color, 170-72 
Locality, story of special, 24 
Lodge, William Cabot, 134 
Lowell, James Russell, Har- 
vard Commemoration Ode 
(quoted), 203 
Lyric, Short-story compared to, 
4, n. 

Mabie, Hamilton Wright, 6 

Mannerisms, as germinal idea, 
35 

Matthews, Brander, The Phi- 
losophy of the Short-story, 3, 
n., 11 

Maupassant, Guy de, 8, 99, 
n., 131-2, n., 193, 196, 197 
n.; TheHorla, 22; The Neck- 
lace, 5, 59, 126, 177-8, 196, 
line Vendetta, 126; Angelus, 
132 note; Recollections of, 132 
note; Pierre et Jean (Intro- 
duction), 193-4 

Meredith, George, Diana of 
the Crossways (quoted), 136, n. 

Merrick, Leonard, The Trag- 
edy of a Comic Song, 125; 
Little - Flower - of- the -Wood, 
178-9 

Mission, of the Short-story, 27 

Mood, story of, 25; as germinal 
idea, 38 



INDEX 



209 



Motif, see Motive 

Motion, use of in Markheim, 
183-4 

Motive, distinguished and de- 
fined, 29-30 

Moulton, R. G., Shakespeare 
As a Dramatic Artist, 9, n., 
168, n. 

Mystery story, 22 

Names: as germinal ideas, 38; 
rarely good titles, 124; as 
suggestive of character, 152- 
3 

Narrative interest, a constitu- 
ent of the Short-story, 3 

Neveux, Pol. (quoted), 197 

Newspaper, a source of germi- 
nal ideas, 42 

Novelty, in the Short-story, 
48 

Objective "angle of narration," 

93-4 
O'Brien, Fitz James, What 

Was It? A Mystery, 22 
Observation, close, necessary, 

39-41, 193-4 
Obstacle, necessary to plot 

complication, 59-61 
Order, of events, 77, 89-92 
Originality, what it is, 199, n. 

Parable, 26 

Participant, "angle" of, 94-7 

Perry, Bliss, A Study of Prose 
Fiction, 4, n. 

Personality: how essential 190- 
91; special qualities of p. 
indispensable for story-writ- 
ing, 192-7; diverse p. of 
writers manifests itself in 
work, 197-200; cultural value 
of Short-story study to p., 
200-202 

Picturesqueness, a style-qual- 
ity, 181-4 

Pitkin, Walter, 12, 77, 93; 
Short-story Writing, 11, 12, 
14, 46, 57 

Place, of action, 18, 66 



Plot: a constituent of the 
Short-story, 3; defined, 11, 
12; should be brief, 11, n.; 
requires selective emphasis 
on climax, 12, 19; nature and 
importance of p., 51-2; se- 
quence in p., 52, 74; simplic- 
ity of, 54-5; Short-story 
p. essentially different from 
that of novel, 55-6; climax 
essential to p., 56, 70; ma- 
terials, 56; further elements 
of plot, 59-66, 70; — com- 
plication, 59-61; circum- 
stances leading to complica- 
tion, 61-2; characters, 62-5; 
environment, 65-6; plots 
stated and discussed, 66-74 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 17-19, 
87, 99, n., 101, 152, 198, 
199; The Black Cat, 13; 
The Pit and the Pendulum, 
13; Purloined Letter, 17; 
On Hawthorne's Twice-Told 
Tales, 17-18, 19; William 
Wilson, 22; Berenice, 127; The 
Fall of the House of Usher, 
127; The Masque of the Red 
Death, 87, 89, 108, 119-20, 
141, 154, 165, 166, 168, 187-8; 
The Cask of Amontillado, 
91, 109-10, 115, 125-6, 142, 
148-9, 169, 194-5 

Problem story, 23 

Proportion, in story elements, 
77, 86-7 

Proverb, as germinal idea, 39 

Purpose of writer: influences 
story, 22; distinguished from 
theme, and defined, 29-30; 
when decided, 49; as guiding 
plot construction, 62, 74-5 

Rankin, T. E. (quoted), 4, 8 
Reading, a source of germinal 

ideas, 39, 42 
Refrain, its uses in structure, 

87-9 
Ruskin, John, 132, n.; Modern 

Painters, 199, n. 
Ruysdael, Jacob, 174 



210 



INDEX 



Sciences, as source of germinal 
ideas, 42 

Scott, Sir Walter, The Lay of 
the Last Minstrel (quoted), 
20 

Selection, necessity of in Short- 
story, 5, 11-12, 19 

Self-expression, an instinctive 
impulse, 190-91 

Sequence, in plot construction, 
52, 74 

Setting: story of, 21; as germi- 
nal idea, 36-8; its value for 
tone. 111, 113; a form of be- 
ginning, 112, 113; its rela- 
tion to atmosphere, 158-9 

Short-story: orthography of, 
3, n.; defined, 18; not 
always technically perfect, 
20; types, 21; kinds classi- 
fied, 22-6; possible mission 
of, 27; must minister to 
universal interest in life, 48; 
cultural value of, 200-202; 
commercialization of, 202 

Simplicity: of plot, 54-5; a 
style-quality, 179-81 

Simpson, E. Blantyre, The 
Robert Louis Stevenson Origi- 
nals, 76, n., 77, n. 

Sincerity, in self-expression, 
199-200 

Single effect, see Single im- 
pression 

Single impression, see Impres- 
sion 

Singleness of form, 96-7 

Situation: crucial, not essen- 
tial, 6-7; denned, and dis- 
tinguished from incident, 9; 
as germinal idea, 32, 33-5 

Sketch, distinguished from 
Short-story, 15 

Speech, a means of characteriza- 
tion, 154-7 

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 99, 
n., 102, 196; Dr. Jekyll and 
Mr. Hyde, 22; The Merry 
Men, 36, 126; A Gossip on 
Romance, 37-8; Markheim, 
22, 84, 85, 91, 93, 105, 116, 



124, 136, 138, 139, 141, 145, 
150, 183-4, 185-6, 187, 194; 
Weir of Hermiston, 77, n. 

Stimson, Frederick J., 196; 
Mrs. Knollys, 13, 84, 87, 88- 
9, 92, 97, n., 108, 117-19, 
124, 135, 139, 141, 144, 147- 
8, 149-50, 155, 160, 176, 180- 
82, 186, 196, 202 

Stockton, Frank R., The Lady 
or the Tiger? 23 

Stories classified, 22-6 

Story within a story, "angle" 
of, 97-9 

Strindberg, August, The Stone 
Man, 65, n. 

Structure of the Short-story: 
regularity of, 4; distinguished 
from plot, 76; guiding princi- 
ple of, 77-8; elements of, 78- 
102 

Style of the Short-story: not 
peculiar in its general qual- 
ities, 173; perfection of s. 
vital, 174-5; each story has 
its own, 176-9; dramatic in- 
tensity of, 176-9; simplicity 
of, 179-81; as affecting at- 
mosphere, 181; picturesque- 
ness, 181-4; figurative s., 
184-6; tone-qualities, 186-8 

Subject matter, restrictions and 
range of, 5-6 

Subject of storv, distinguished 
and defined, 29-30 

Suspense, 23, 60, 67, 106 

Symbolism, story of, 26 

Sympathy, necessary to story- 
writer, 195-7 

Tale, distinguished from Short- 
story, 12 

Technique, no substitute for 
soul, 189 

Tennyson, Alfred, The Charge 
of the Light Brigade (quoted), 
89; lyrics, 173 

Theme distinguished and de- 
fined, 29-30; as germinal 
idea, 39; should be telling, 
44-5; as guiding plot con- 



